IsRoommate got her nephew a GI Joe for his birthday, and this has inspired some fairly serious debate around here.

Is GI Joe a doll or an action figure?

Girls call it a doll. Boys call it an action figure. I'm not sure there's really a difference beyond semantics.

I know that I used to steal my cousins' GI Joes because I thought Ken was a lousy date for my Barbie. GI Joe in the 70's had the cool fuzzy velcro hair and Ken just had that molded plastic. Sometimes he just got to wear an apron and come to the tea party. If nobody was around, though, GI Joe might get to score with Barbie just a little bit.

Or whatever scoring means in the mind of a 6 year old girl.

And sometimes I dressed him in drag, which resulted in the inevitable beating from my older bo cousin who couldn't believe I had gotten his action figure into the pink Superstar dress.

The IsBoyfriend argued passionately for several minutes on the topic of the GI Joe as action figure.

Right up to the point where The Suz's sister called and we could hear her niece shouting in the background "I wanna play with Stewie's Man Barbie!"

And so it continues. I hope those two crazy kids can work it out.