Hello Kitty

I’ve received a number of requests in the comment section of posts to reveal my email so that people can send me Hello Kitty photos. This represents a huge dilemma for me. I have no desire to see more Hello Kitty in my daily life than already exists and having my email fill up with Hello Kitty photos kind of seems like a whole new Hello Kitty Hell in itself.

In addition, on the off chance that something is sent to me that my wife doesn’t already have in her collection, she’s going to want to add it to it which certainly is not a positive step in reducing the Hello Kitty in my life.

These points should have me guarding my email secretly from all that visit this site, but of course there is a sadistic hopeful quality in anyone that can live in a Hello Kitty Hell. There might be that one Hello Kitty item out there that is so hideous that it would actually make a Hello Kitty fanatic reconsider their love of Hello Kitty (come on, we all have to have dreams). If I should miss this because someone could not contact me with it, that means that I will have to live longer like this than is necessary.

So it is with dreaded fear (and unfounded hope) that you can now find my email contact in the sidebar…

Okay, I admit it. I’m keeping score and the initial score isn’t looking good. When I started Hello Kitty Hell, I thought a bit about how people might react to it. I figured it would give me a release to the Hello Kitty Hell I dwell within, provide a few laughs for those on the outside and possibly get me some sympathy for my plight. What I didn’t predict was that I would begin a fan base for my wife.

That’s right. This blog has produced 7 fan letters to my wife telling her how much they love her store and how they wish they were as lucky as she is to be able to live with so many Hello Kitties around. All I’ve received is a Hello Kitty devil icon and photos of Hello Kitty items that people want me to show to my wife just to clamp down the torture chamber devices that much more. This is what I found in my email box this morning:

I just totally adore Hello Kitty. She is the cutest. And she is such a great teacher! I especially love the ones that wink or are sleepy. I collect those and I’m so jealous of all the Hello Kitty plush you have. You are so lucky. I’d be in heaven with only a tenth of the things that you have.When I’m sad or feeling bad, I have a large Hello Kitty plush that comforts me. She knows my heart like nobody else does. She just listens and lets all my tears flow away. And when I’m happy, her face is always bright and happy…

Not to pigeon hole Hello Kitty fanatics as not having a full set upstairs, but you might want to rethink some things if you consider an animation character of a cat your “teacher.” I could also go on about how Hello Kitty “…just listens and lets my tears flow away” (hmmmm, could it possibly be because she’s not real so she can’t talk, or if you happen to believe she is real, she still doesn’t have a mouth?), but I will restrain myself (sort of;).

Of course, my wife sees these letters in a totally different light. She reads the same lines and says stuff to me like, “oh, how cute. She knows the heart of Hello Kitty” and “She can see the true Hello Kitty, unlike you.”

In addition to having more excuses to expound upon the virtues of Hello Kitty, my wife also finds extreme humor in all of this. She even went so far as to introduce me to one of her friends as ” my Hello Kitty fan promoter” the other day. Of all the courses that this writing venture would take, building a Hello Kitty fan base for my wife was definitely not one that came to mind…and so even when I try to ridicule Hello Kitty and her fans, the coals in the fires of Hello Kitty Hell get some extra fuel poured onto them to keep the place plenty hot…

I received an anonymous email today with this Hello Kitty devil attached and a simple note saying “it seemed appropriate for your site.” When I first looked at it, it did seem appropriate and I placed it into my header thinking it would appropriately highlight the whole Hello Kitty theme. Now having it on the site for half a day, it has already become annoyingly Hello Kitty. Even as a devil, the image seems too cute (winking and bobbing her head back and forth). One might be acceptable, but when you line them up, they just become overwhelming…

I guess this annoyance really does sum up the Hello Kitty Hell I find myself in, but I’m still not convinced whether it adds or takes away from the Hello Kitty Hell image. Any thoughts from the two or three random people who accidentally stumble across this site would be appreciated. Should it stay or go???

When I began this blog, I thought I might receive a bit of sympathy from the readers, some kindred friendship from those who have had similar instances (please don’t tell me I’m the only one out there living through this) and some support in my quest to keep my sanity in this Hello Kitty Hell. Instead I get this as my first question email in relation to this site:

I just love Hello Kitty. You are so lucky to know so much about Hello Kitty. I have been wondering for the longest time what the names of Kitty’s grandmother and grandfather are? Please teach me.

Obviously I have overestimated the intelligence of the Hello Kitty fan base, especially after having spent time previously explaining in detail why I am in extreme torture because of the unfortunate fact that I do know too much about Hello Kitty. The mere mention of Hello Kitty must make their brains turn to a type of mush soup (applesauce would be quite appropriate — I pray you don’t understand that reference) where cuteness (in their distorted vision) prevails over all reason.

What’s even worse than someone telling me how lucky I am to know so much about Hello Kitty? Actually knowing the answer to her question once again! (scroll over the photos if you really must know the answer). When I began this, I never imagined that it would in any way become a Hello Kitty educational resource – just one more way best intentions get morphed in disgusting ways when one lives in a Hello Kitty Hell…

I know exactly how he feels…One of the scariest things which I don’t like to even think about (let alone mention in public like this) is that I know far too much about Hello Kitty than is healthy for any grown man (or person for that matter, but being a grown man makes it all that much worse). The information seems to invade your body when you live in a Hello Kitty Hell like an unwanted parasite. I don’t want to know this stuff. I have no interest in this stuff. I don’t want anything to do with it. Yet at the end of the day, it seeps into my memory in the depths of my brain and can’t be purged. Hello Kitty facts sitting up there wasting valuable brain space and not a damn thing I can do about it. 

My wife thinks that this is great. When she needs to know some obscure fact about Hello Kitty that she can’t remember, she’ll call to me and more often than not I’ll know the answer. Can it get any worse than that? Knowing facts that you don’t want to know about Hello Kitty. I’m surprised I haven’t been committed.

For example, the following left my mouth (to my extreme horror) at a get-together of my wife’s friends when one of them mentioned how it was wonderful that Hello Kitty was born in Japan. Any normal person would not have even thought twice about the comment, but the Hello Kitty information invaders in my mind couldn’t let it pass. My response? “While a lot of people assume that Hello Kitty was born in Tokyo, Japan, she was really born in London, England when her father, George, was on transfer there with his company.” These are the things that are stuck in my mind and come out in conversations and there is nothing I can do about it.

I can tell you what Hello Kitty’s last name is (White), how you can tell the difference between her and her sister, Mimmy (they wear their bows on the opposite side – Kitty wears it on her left, Mimmy on her right), the name of the rabbit that Kitty sometimes carries with her (Kathy), Hello Kitty’s height (approx. 5 apples) and weight (approx. 3 apples) and much more so that if I continued on here, I’d really get depressed and slit my wrists (I’m almost at that point just realizing what I have written here…)

The worst part of having this Hello Kitty knowledge is when my friends learn about it and then abuse it. We will be at a gathering of some type with a lot of people I don’t know and they’ll start talking about Hello Kitty and making false statements on purpose knowing that I will have to correct them. Then I look like some type of freak for knowing so much about Hello Kitty and trying to explain why it’s useless by that point. Then they laugh about it for the rest of the evening. I just hope that as a deserved punishment, they one day begin to remember the Hello Kitty stuff too…

So I live with the Hello Kitty Hell both externally and internally waiting in great anticipation for the day when they come out with a device that can erase selective memory because I’ll be first in line…

I took off for the weekend to Las Vegas to meet my business partner, Nate, with whom I’ve worked on a number of websites, but had never met before. I thought that this trip would get me away from my Hello Kitty Hell for at least a weekend, but alas, this was not the case.

You see, when people hear about my Hello Kitty Hell, they think that it’s humorous. Looking at it from the outside, I guess I could see this point of view. Being on the inside, however, the Hello Kitty Hell multiplies with the number of people who learn about what I have to live with because they continually bring it up (as they laugh).

Instead of escaping from Hello Kitty on this trip, Nate made us go into every Hello Kitty shop we came across to try and find a gift for my wife that she didn’t already have. Of course, I would never even consider getting something Hello Kitty for my wife because that might encourage her and make her believe that I actually support her Hello Kitty fanaticism in some way. Actually, it’s pretty much a moot point because there is rarely anything that I ever see that she doesn’t already have.

I am now painfully aware of every Hello Kitty shop in the Las Vegas area. When I explained to my wife what Nate had done to me, she was overjoyed that I could now take her if we go to Vegas in the future. She also wanted to know why Nate was willing to take a photo with Hello Kitty and I always refuse.

I think I have the perfect plan to get back at Nate. The next time we meet, I’ll make sure my wife comes along and since she now thinks that Nate likes Hello Kitty, I’ll let him deal with her Hello Kitty shopping for a day. That should teach him…