It all started with me wanting to learn Thai. Joe, in an attempt to encourage, bought me some Hamtaro exercise books meant for small children. I was already familiar with Hamtaro (a Japanese animated cartoon) since a few years ago Joe bought me a Hamtaro video game for my birthday (side note: the point of the video game was to help little hamster couples find their lost hamster loves, it was almost unbearably cute). I therefore didn’t worry about this first bit of cute, it was just because it was meant for small children, and after all I didn’t buy it myself.
My next moment of weakness was a cell phone charm. I don’t know if this concept exists at home yet, but everyone here has cell phone charms- just a way to make your phone cute and original. When Mara moved in, she bought the exact same cell phone I have, so I rationalized that I needed a cell phone charm in order to tell our phones apart. At least mine (a jade Chinese fish) is tasteful. Joe bought a crocheted little Doremon (another cartoon character—this one a cat like robot).
I can find no excuse for the next two acquisitions. They were cute, I gave in. And as an added Thai bonus, both contain English language errors.
The first is a t-shirt, two giraffes, a big one sharing its food with a small one. The lettering says Sharing and underneath, in small letters, Design by No Proplem. It’s cute and I like it. But would I like it if I was still living in the U.S?
The other is a bag, and this is the purchase that is starting to worry me. It’s a print, with various people and creatures including: a girl with pink hair dressed as a cactus, a smiling pink she-devil carrying a steaming pie, smiling flowers of various colors (some with fangs), a carton and a bottle of milk with legs, eyes, and cow horns, a monkey with an Italian flag helmet riding a blue Vespa-style scooter, a skull and cross-bones from what appears to have been a cute cartoon character, an orange faced boy dressed up in a cow suit carrying a machine gun…etc. Mixed in with the various characters are the phrases “Nice?” and “Flower’spring.” Is it Nice? I don’t know, I seem to be losing my judgment, but I do know that I really like it (with a healthy dose of irony, of course). But if anyone sees me in a pink bunny suit, it’s time to stage an intervention.