My mother's sick, sad addiction
Written by: Becky D. (Mary's 15-year-old daughter)
Being the teenage daughter of a Sanrio obsessed 40-something woman is like being controlled by a 4-year-old girl. Ninety percent of everything my mother buys is either pink, a cat with no mouth or some strangly shapped creature with an unpronounceable name. Every time one of those techno-colored packages arrive at our door, my mother's shrieks fill the house, followed by, "Isn't that just the cutest thing?"
Think I'm kidding? The Hawaii incident: Spring break of 2003, my mother, sister, my mother's fiancee and his daughters all boarded a plane and arrived in Hawaii hours later. We spent the week on a small part of Oahu's north shore and planned on going to Honolulu later in the week. Every day my mother would remind us how many days until we could visit the Sanrio store. Finally the day arrived and my mom could not have been happier. We drove into town, to the mall and within a matter of seconds, my mother was off and running towards the underground cartoon hell. Her ohhhs and ahhhhs could be heard all the way to the sheets. I cringed when I thought about how long we would be trapped in the wonderland of toasters with cats on them, suitcases big enough for a pair of underwear and vaccums the size of small children. 3 hours and 4 large shopping bags later, we left -- much to my delight and my mom's dismay.
I thought it was just a phase, but nothing with her NOTHING is a phase. Soon all our pencils were replaced with pink pens with animals, all stationery was brightly colored, and I started getting notes at school on every type of Sanrio paper/envelope combination imaginable, "just because."
One night when all conversation had died down, my mother admitted that she would love to live in an Airstream trailer filled with Hello Kitty memorabilia. The idea still freaks me out.
Until she gets over this sick, sad addiction I'm stuck in a Hello Kitty Hell.
Good-Bye Kitty.