Hello Kitty Mask

I actually write this post with some relief (if it is possible to write anything about Hello Kitty with relief). Eve sent some photos over about a Hello Kitty Halloween mask:

Hello Kitty mask

Hello Kitty mask

Hello Kitty mask

Why the relief? I spent the entire Halloween season dreading that my wife would find a Hello Kitty costume and insist on wearing it. In Japan, Halloween isn’t celebrated and the whole costume concept is still a bit new so I tipped-toed around making sure that the Hello Kitty Halloween costume didn’t get mentioned. Luckily, Eve was kind enough not to pass these along until after Halloween was over.

As with all things in Hello Kitty Hell, however, the relief comes with a big asterisk by its side. Now that my wife has seen “that utterly adorable costume” I think that Halloween next year is going to be one for the record books. It may be even worse than that — wife: “wouldn’t it be really cute if I wore that around the house?”

I’m praying that was just a passing thought and not a real question…

Hello Kitty Tombstone

I received the following email from a reader named Shane the other day:

Just wanted to give you some insite before it was to late and you are damned to eternity within hello kitty hell. I would suggest you go and pick out your casket and head stone now plus set in your will that these are the things you want to be your last will and testament. The chances that there are Hello Kitty tombstones and caskets are likely. So that you won’t have to spend the only time you will have without Hello Kitty staring at the monogrammed liner of a Hello Kitty casket and sleeping on your plush Hello Kitty pillow.

At first I chuckled to myself and that this was extreme even by Hello Kitty Hell standards, but as the day wore on, I couldn’t shake what he said and I started to get nervous. What if there really were Hello Kitty tombstones and caskets?

To my utter dismay it didn’t take me long to find a Hello Kitty Tombstone and having lived in Japan, I can confirm that it truly is a real gravestone:

Hello Kitty Tombstone
Photo courtesy of Greg from Greg.org
 

While I wasn’t able to unearth any photos of Hello Kitty coffins, it isn’t unreasonable to agree with Shane that they probably do exist if the tombstones exist.

This realization that once I leave this world, I still may not be free from my Hello Kitty Hell (just think about it – being buried in a Hello Kitty casket with Hello Kitty guarding your grave – this is the scariest story I’ve heard the entire Halloween season!) has thrown the entire Hello Kitty Hell purgatory to a whole new dimension. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep tonight.

I would like to thank Shane for looking out for me and thinking about the future. It goes to show that Hello Kitty fanantics can’t be trusted to leave any item untouched…

post script: just as I was about to post this:

wife walks in: what’s that?

me: Nothing (trying to get the Hello Kitty tombstone off the computer screen)

wife: Oh, what a great idea! It’s sooooo cute. I want one of those. Then we can also order a Dear Daniel one too and we can be with them for eternity…

Hello Kitty Hell for eternity…I think it’s time I go and change my will…

Hello Kitty Converse High Tops

Since I was in high school, I’ve always enjoyed wearing Converse high tops. They were sort of my fashion statement while all the other students around me went for Nike or whatever other fashionable shoe was in at that moment. Of course, during that time they only had 2 colors – black and white. It wasn’t until I went to college that they started printing them in a variety of different colors and patterns. In fact, I still have a pair of both black and white Converse high tops.

There is nothing worse than when a product that you have loved for years sells out. I tolerated the different colors and even the different patterns until my wife came home with these:

Hello Kitty Converse high top basketball shoes

Hello Kitty Converse high tops

That’s right. They actually make Hello Kitty Converse shoes these days. What’s worse, every time I decide to wear my Converse high tops, my wife wants to wear her “matching pair” – something tells me I will never be wearing them again.

You know that Hello Kitty Hell has moved to an entirely new level when even the shoe style you grew up with has come out in a Hello Kitty model. I think I’ll go cry myself to sleep…

Hello Kitty DVD Nightmare

Most men would be in heaven if they didn’t have to fight tooth and nail with their wife to get all the electronic gadgets they want. When you live in Hello Kitty Hell, however, things often get turned upside down. While I do like my gadgets, I pray that we don’t get any new ones these days.

I think that the people at Sanrio have purposefully peeked into my Hello Kitty Hell and are having bets among one another whether they can make it worse. Then they sit there high-fiving one another when they see that something that just shouldn’t exist in this world ends up in households like mine. I’m not big on conspiracy theories, but Hello Kitty Hell is moving me in that direction.

Let’s take our DVD for example. While living in Japan I made the mistake mentioning that I would like to get a DVD player. When it comes to gadgets like that, I usually have to negotiate over a long period of time to get the gadget, but on this occasion I received a “what a great idea!” Now, in hindsight, this should have been a glaring clue that something was obscenely going to go wrong, but of course it did not register until I came home that evening to find this monstrosity in our house:

Hello Kitty Japanese DVD

Of course, the DVD nightmare didn’t end there. It wasn’t long after that the portable Hello Kitty DVD player ended up in our house without me even requesting it:

Hello Kitty Japanese Portable DVD

I thought it couldn’t get any worse when the other day we went into a store and saw the US Hello Kitty DVD version for sale.

Hello Kitty US DVD

My wife’s eyes immediately opened wide and I walked us out of there as quickly as possible. It seemed that I’d avoided another escalation in Hello Kitty Hell. I think I did…the problem is that I have this nagging feeling that when I return home from the current trip I’m on, there is going to be another DVD player in our household…

Hello Kitty Crop Circle

It didn’t take long for photos to begin showing up in my mailbox. In fact, there are a bunch in there and some I’m downright afraid that my wife will see so much so that I actually put a password on the file. There are just some things she should not see for my sanity…

One of the submissions was of a 2004 Hello Kitty crop circle that was made as part of the 30th anniversary of Hello Kitty. While this photo is a couple of years old and both my wife and I have seen it, I do still remember when it first came out:

Hello Kitty crop circle

Hello Kitty crop circle in field

wife: Look, a Hello Kitty crop circle

me: Please don’t tell me you think aliens did it…

wife: No, it’s a promotion from Sanrio to celebrate Hello Kitty’s 30th anniversary.

me: Why would you build a crop circle to do that?

wife: Because Sanrio knows that if aliens did visit the earth, they would be filled with the heart of Hello Kitty.

me: You’re kidding, right? Please tell me you’re kidding…

wife: Hello Kitty brings joy to people no matter where they are. Whether they are on earth or in the sky looking down on earth. I think we should fly to go and see it.

me: We are not going to fly half way around the world to see a crop circle of Hello Kitty

The conversation continued along those lines for the next week and about how much I didn’t appreciate the love that Hello Kitty brings to people. While this episode should be long over, I’m afraid I will not be able to forget the crop circle for the rest of my life. This is because every time that my wife sees this particular Hello Kitty crop circle photo, she flashes back to that time to remind my how I don’t appreciate Hello Kitty as much as I should. Not to mention refusing to go and see the crop circle (there was a time that I actually stood my ground…ah, those days when I was still young and naive…)

Of course, this photo being sent to my mail, and my wife getting a glimpse of it, teleported us back to the original conversation which appears to have heated the temperature in my Hello Kitty Hell. To make up for my wife missing out on the crop circle, she heavily hinted that a Hello Kitty Airplane ride was in order.

Any suggestions how I’m going to get myself out of that???

Hat tip (circlemakers.org via ojuang)

Hello Kitty Hell Email

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…

Sanrio Fembot Loves Hello Kitty

A couple of people left links to a story about a new “fembot” produced by Kokoro (a Sanrio owned company) that has the robot wearing a I Love Hello Kitty shirt. Then the other day I received an email with a couple of links to videos of the fembot:

Not too surprising, my reaction to this and my wife’s reaction weren’t quite the same:

wife: “Even robots want the heart of Hello Kitty.”

The only positive I can say is that at least they didn’t make an actual Hello Kitty robot, but my Hello Kitty Hell intuition tells me that something like that is bound to show up sometime in the future…

Hello Kitty Boxers

See, things can get worse. I should have seen this coming, but part of living in Hello Kitty Hell is also living in denial that things will one day get better. It was bad enough when my wife was wearing Hello Kitty underwear, but now she wants me to wear it. Today I received a pair of Hello Kitty boxers:

Hello Kitty boxers
Hello Kitty boxers
Hello Kitty boxers
As you can see, not only are they Hello Kitty boxers, but Hello Kitty is in her famous “1974” original pose where she appears to be flipping me off. And you read the writing on the front correctly: “The Purr-fect Pal! She’s The Cat’s Meow!” Somehow that feels quite appropriate for Hello Kitty Hell – being mocked by a character on my underwear.

I imagine that it’s going to be extremely hard to keep my manly respect if I ever have to wear these which once again brings me too the Hello Kitty Hell catch 22. If I don’t wear them, then my wife will assume that I don’t appreciate the gift. Since non appreciation usually relegates me to the couch and the Hello Kitty sleeping bag for a week, sometime in the near future I am going to actually have to wear these (and make sure my wife sees that I am wearing them) or tempt my couch sleeping fate.

Just the thought of it is sending shivers down my spine…

No Fire In Hello Kitty Hell

I read over on engadget about a recall of a Hello Kitty that can spontaneously combust:

Exploding Hello Kitty

Apparently the chemicals inside the plastic piece aren’t too stable and sometimes leak. This can make the toy start to flame. Of course, upon hearing this, I mentioned to my wife that Hello Kitty can be dangerous. Her answer? She brought out these:

Hello Kitty Fire Extinguisher

wife: “Hello Kitty will always be here to protect us”

I realize all of you reading here are still trying to get a grasp of how bad my Hello Kitty Hell is, but we have Hello Kitty fire extinguishers. I sit here thinking it can’t get much worse than that, but the sad thing is that I know when tomorrow comes, somehow it will…

Never Ask A Hello Kitty Lover To Shop For You

I learned long ago that you should never ask someone that loves Hello Kitty to shop for you. While it would be obvious to the average person that getting Hello Kitty merchandise for a guy is not appropriate, Hello Kitty fanatics have a short circuit in their brain that negates this common sense. I’ve received more than my fair share of gifts that had been tagged with Hello Kitty on them and therefore do almost 100% of my own shopping these days.

The problem comes when a birthday or other gift giving event approaches. Since I can’t choose my own gift, I have learned to ask for things that can’t be found with Hello Kitty on them. It was with this in mind that I asked my wife for a USB flash memory disk for my computer for my birthday.

Now any normal person would assume a request for something like this would be Hello Kitty safe. Never underestimate the ever expanding presence of Hello Kitty to increase my hell. This is what I received:

Hello Kitty USB Flash Memory Stick

Yes, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. That is, in fact, a Hello Kitty USB Flash memory stick. Not only that, it is a limited edition Hello Kitty Flash memory stick that apparently is in great demand. I had to listen to my wife tell me how difficult it was for her to obtain it and smile in appreciation the entire time. 

Apparently there were only 5000 thousand of these made exclusively in Japan and they came in a special box:

Hello Kitty USB Flash Memory Stick Box

The box includes a 2006 Hello Kitty diary, a small Hello Kitty pouch and three Hello Kitty ink stamps (oh, yes, just what I need…):

Hello Kitty USB Flash Memory Stick Box Bonus

What these have to do with a computer memory stick is beyond me, but obviously those that make Hello Kitty items know that Hello Kitty fanatics will buy anything that has Hello Kitty on it whether they need it or not, so why not throw random things together? So my computer, which I have so diligently protected from Hello Kitty Hell, now has a Hello Kitty memory stick invading its USB port and likely will for the foreseeable future. It’s either that or spend another week on the couch in a Hello Kitty sleeping bag for not appreciating all the effort she went through to get me the gift…