Hello Kitty Devil

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???

Hello Kitty Nightmare Becoming Reality

Anthony WhiteMargaret WhiteWhen 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…

Hello Kitty Pierced Navel Rings

I received an anonymous email (not sure that opening them up will be such a good idea in the future) telling me I should show my wife the new Hello Kitty pierced belly button rings they have. My wife, of course, knew that it must be something wonderfully Hello Kitty the minute I let out a depressed moan at the site of them. She was by the computer side before I had a chance to delete the photo.

Hello Kitty Navel Ring

Now, don’t be fooled into thinking that my wife had come to her senses and didn’t want these. Oh, she wants them because “they are so adorable” and “wouldn’t any woman be cute and sexy wearing that?” But I actually heard the words “I won’t buy those…” (this is the point where I figured I was hallucinating and had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t in a dream) “until I lose some weight…”

Now as any married man knows, this put me in an impossible situation where I was either going to go deeper into Hello Kitty Hell or be sleeping on the couch the rest of the week. The “until I lose weight…” was followed by a long pause waiting for me to answer. I know from vast experience that “No dear, you look perfect.” was the correct answer, but that meant that I may have to look at a Hello Kitty navel ring for the rest of my life. On the other hand, “yes, good idea” meant I would have a lot of lonely nights ahead of me.

Faced with this choice, I did the only thing I could do. I remained silent like a deer frozen in headlights knowing I was doomed either way – which of course was no help because silence automatically gets moved toward the “yes” side.

So as I type this late at night with only the couch, a Hello Kitty pillow and a Hello Kitty blanket to look forward to for what I estimate will be a week, I do take a small bit of solace in the fact that I won’t have to see a Hello Kitty belly button ring…at least for this week…

Update: I was really hoping that I would never actually have to see someone wearing one of these…

Sent in by shelly

hello kitty belly ring

Sent in by Dede

hello kitty belly stud

Sent in by abigail (vegan kitty)

Hello Kitty Proof

$160 Hello Kitty PlushI received an email from someone who challenged me saying that I was making Hello Kitty Hell up and exaggerating. Oh, if only that were truly the case!! The one thing that you will learn as you continue to read this saga is that it all gets so absurd that nobody could ever be creative enough to make up something like this. There are just some things in the world that are so completely wrong that when you hear about them, you know that despite the chill it sends down your spine, it has to be true. I think you’ll see my Hello Kitty Hell is that way. 

I was talking to a friend over the weekend and he suggested that I go on the wife swap show, but the truth is that I could never subject another person to Hello Kitty Hell and live with myself later in life. There are some things that are just too cruel to contemplate, and that is one of them. I do think that it may be an effective strategy to implement on mass murderers in place of the death penalty – much more painful and lasting over a long period of time. I’m sure the inmates would be able to successfully fight it in court, however, as cruel and unusual punishment.

In relation to providing proof, Emily also asked if my wife had a website (I hope that this was to get some type of demented pleasure at my expense and not the desire to imitate my wife.) This is another one of those Catch 22 situations. She really should have one, but if I create one for her I’m afraid of what will happen and have thus been avoiding this next logical step. At the moment she doesn’t have a website dedicated to Hello Kitty, but does have an extensive Hello Kitty eBay Store which as you can see, has over 1000 different items for sale. Now imagine that what is listed there is only a tiny fraction of what is stored in our house and you begin to get a picture of what I live with.

Hmmmm, maybe I should make the person who challenged me come live for a month as punishment…

I Know More About Hello Kitty Than Is Healthy

Hello Kitty Dog
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…

Hello Kitty License Plate

It seems that when people begin to read or hear about my Hello Kitty Hell, they tend to see more Hello Kitty all around them. When they do, of course they decide to share their finds with me. The above is a photo that Gasping For Breath came across after seeing the post about the Hello Kitty Ferrari:

Oh that reminds me. Right after you posted that pink car I wound up behind another Hello Kitty fan. And snapped a shot with my camera phone. Not as intense as the car your wife wants but …

Now most logical people would assume that snapping a photo like this would be innocent enough and not bring more wrath to my Hello Kitty world, but that would be highly underestimating the Hello Kitty fanatic. While obviously the car above doesn’t compare with the Hello Kitty Ferrari, that doesn’t mean that it can’t cause more trouble as the following conversation we had shows:

wife: “What’s that photo?”

me: “Nothing…”

wife: “That looks like Hello Kitty” (I think she has a radar about this stuff…I was on the computer all morning and she walks in the one minute I’m looking at a Hello Kitty photo)

me: “Yes…one of the members took a photo of a car she saw”

wife: “Hey, I want that license plate! How can we get that?!?” (can’t get personalized license plates like that in Japan)

me: “Sorry impossible” (lying through my teeth)

The problem, of course, is in the days to come when she finds out that it is possible to get such a license plate and may be just one more reason we won’t get a car in the US…

With Friends Like This…

Hello Kitty & NateI 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…

Hello Kitty Band-Aids

Hello Kitty BandaidOne of the most frustrating aspects of living in a Hello Kitty Hell is the embarrassment that comes along with it. Yesterday morning I accidentally gave myself a nice paper cut and needed a band-aid to protect it. Of course, the only band-aids that we have in the house are Hello Kitty band-aids.

Not really having a choice in the matter, I reluctantly wrapped my finger in the Hello Kitty band-aid and went about my business. I didn’t think anything more of it until I was at a cash register ready to make a purchase and the sales lady kept looking at my finger and then back up to me with such a strange look that she obviously thought I was some kind of psycho. How could I blame her? – a grown man walking around with a Hello Kitty band-aid is not something normal nor can it be adequately explained in a couple of minutes.

Next time I think it will be less painful to just bleed to death…

Update

Hello Kitty bandaids

Left by Lia via facebook

Hello Kitty band aids

Sent in by Melissa who says: “My friends and I were having a fun day at the river this last summer when my friend Kevin hurt his foot, so after we got home we had to bandage up his foot and the only band-aids I had were Hello Kitty.” This is why you never want to hurt yourself in the presence of a hello Kitty fanatic…

hello kitty bandaid

Sent in by Becca

Darth Vader

I received an email with this photo of a Hello Kitty Darth Vader

Hello Kitty Darth Vader

Now I have never been a big Star Wars fan, but I do know quite a bit about it because when I first started selling collectibles on eBay, Star Wars was one of the most profitable lines for awhile. Of course my wife could never understand why anyone would have interest in “such ugly characters.”

Of course, when the email arrived and the Hello Kitty Darth Vader revealed herself, my wife instantly had good things to say about Star Wars. “Why doesn’t everyone dress like that – it makes something that’s ugly look so much cuter! I would even go to one of those conventions if I could wear that.” 

I explained that this was another photoshop joke and that nobody really made it. I explained that every Star Wars fan would probably roll over in their grave at the sight of this piece of sacrilege if it were true. None of this common sense fazed her.

This is another one of the ever present dangers of living in Hello Kitty Hell among the fanatics – no matter how bizarre or wrong something is, they can only see “cute” when Hello Kitty is placed on it. I’m just thankful that there are no more movies coming out because she would likely make a costume like that and attend…

Hello Kitty Ferrari

One of the things that always happens when people become aware of my Hello Kitty Hell is that they begin to send me photos of all those random and strange Hello Kitty things that are available. Since the vast majority of people in the world actually have common sense, they believe that everyone else has the same common sense. While this is a logical assumption, it most definitely doesn’t apply to Hello Kitty fanatics.

Hello Kitty Ferrari
Take, for example, this photo that Dawn passed onto me. Anyone in their right mind would take one look at the Ferrari and laugh out loud (or take a quick run to the bathroom and get sick), but not a Hello Kitty fanatic. Their eyes have ceased to function correctly and they don’t realize that an electric Pepto Bismol colored car with Sanrio characters is not something to be desired. They take one look at it and think “wouldn’t that be the best thing in the world to have?”

Of course, this was exactly the reaction of my wife. “OMG, is that the cutest thing ever!!??!! I want one!” It didn’t matter that I explained that the photo had been photoshopped and the car didn’t really exist. She wants it. The photo has already been printed out and placed on her bulletin board as an incentive to grow the Hello Kitty business more and it is all I will be hearing about for the next month. But the truly scary part is that if she ever gets the money to afford something like that, I have no doubt that she’ll take the photo down to the Ferrari dealer and say she wants it painted exactly like this.

Even people who think they are creating fun jokes to pass around don’t realize that their playfulness places me deeper into my Hello Kitty Hell…

Update: Well, it had to happen. Someone actually thought it would be a good idea to make a real Hello Kitty Ferrari