I don't have a photo, but it is my pleasure to impress you all by proudly announcing that among my vast stores of boxes packed with days and years gone by, is a 100% Authentic and Original Tropical Miko.
She is not in mint condition, because although I was already well into adulthood when I received her as a gift, I nevertheless played with her. I was tickled to have a "Barbie" that looked like me! Well, OK that is stretching it. (And I would have to be considerably stretched to have the proportions of any 11 1/2 inch fashion doll. I am 5'2". And a full, if uncertain fraction. Sometimes. I think.)
But she looked more like me than Barbie. Or that insufferable Midge. Always borrowing clothes and never returning them. And she gossiped all the time, too. Told people Barbie used falsies, which is a lie.
Tropical Miko even had a different face. And she had her own clothes. She didn't even like Barbie's clothes. In fact, she didn't really like Barbie. No, that's not it exactly. She just didn't have much in common with her. I mean, of course, she felt sorry for her, you know, the Ken situation and all. But frankly, Tropical Miko preferred the company of stuffed animals. Call them stuck-up intellectuals if you will. Lord knows, Barbie did, and I guess there is some truth to it. They did all go in together to buy a Commodore 64.
Barbie thought it was a TV show, a sequel to Gomer Pyle or something, she told Midge, who wrinkled her freckled nose and said THAT must be a lie. You can't buy TV shows. Barbie's eyes widened, as best they could, back in those days, especially. You don't think - Oh God Midge! Could it be a, you know, drug?
It was actually one of the most insightful moments Barbie would ever have. As well as the last time she would ever see her favorite red-fringed crop top, as she watched Midge flounce off with it.