Hello...KITTY! Rraahr...

Since the early 80s I have loved the intricate doo-dads imported to us from Japan by the good people of Sanrio. The obsession with pencils, pens, smelly erasers, stickers and the like pretty much overwhelmed me. Hello Kitty? LITTLE TWIN STARS??!! Oh how you slay me.

So call it an adult indulgence: the Sanrio store on W. 42nd St. This place is almost like walking into some kind of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie set (note to self: write a Hello Kitty movie script). It's just so rewarding that as a grown-up, I can finally afford to buy anything I want in here, as opposed to having to budget the $2.75 that I begged my mother for in 1982.

How glorious would it be to have a luggage set that matched the microwave that matched the towels that matched the chewing gum...all in shades of pink and adorned with cartoon logos of somewhat familiar animal-like critters? Somebody is smoking something here, and I hope they're exhaling in turquoise and lavender with a strawberry-like fragrance.