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…