Cracker Barrel is releasing Dolly Parton’s Backwoods Barbie

When we (and by “we,” you know I just about always mean “I” — all the more so in this case) at Wayward headquarters saw the publicity e-mail subject line “COLLECTORS’ EDITION OF DOLLY PARTON’S BACKWOODS BARBIE SET FOR EXCLUSIVE RELEASE AT ALL CRACKER BARREL LOCATIONS MARCH 23,” a part of us rejoiced.

What was this part, you ask? Isn’t it obvious? It’s the part of us that has always — we’re talking since shortly after birth (though Jungians would argue since long before that event) and persisting despite the ravages of time — been transfixed by Dolly Parton’s hair. Not.

Now, don’t get me — I mean us — wrong. It’s not as though every little piece of Parton news sends us into a deep meditative trance where the only three things that exist are the primitive base unit of the unconscious (the id, in Freudian theory) and those hovering, beckoning, unknowable planetary orbs. But the mention of “Barbie” triggered memory of that childhood impulse to strip the raiment of any available clothed doll, male or female, and examine the a plastic simulacrum of the ideal human form revealed.

Our id will have to wait. Backwoods Barbie is not the name of a new line of (swooningly) anatomically correct Dolly Parton dolls but rather the classy, wholesome and deservedly legendary country singer’s new album, which, as the PR spells out so clearly, is SET FOR EXCLUSIVE RELEASE AT ALL CRACKER BARREL LOCATIONS [Monday] MARCH 23.

Our only recourse is to drive to the nearest Cracker Barrel and console ourselves with a system-shocking dose of Sawmill Gravy and hot buttered biscuits. Simulacra, yo.