Hello Kitty Goodbye Hello

How do you tell a five-year-old that the world is crawling with lowlife scum?

About a year ago, someone stole my daughter's Hello Kitty purse from the back seat of her grandmother's car.

This wasn't the first brush with near-disaster for CC (my daughter) and the purse. A few months earlier we almost lost it at Disney World when it was left in the ladies' room. Fortunately, some nameless good samaritan (thank you, wherever you are) found it and turned it in to Lost and Found. But not before CC cried her eyes out in despair.

Losing it is bad enough. Having it stolen is worse.

Stealing a purse from a 5-year old? What a proud moment it must have been. Your future really looks bright, you worthless pile of excrement. Please stop pretending to be human. Those of us who actually are human take exception. But I digress...

More tears. "Daddy will find you another one." "No, the stuff that you had in it will still be gone."

Welcome to reality, kid. I'm sorry I couldn't shield you from it longer than I did. I wanted to. Remember when you were three and asked me if you could have some gum? We were in my car on the way home from Miss Suzanne's. I said "No, Mommy doesn't want you to have any gum, 'cause she's afraid you'll get it in your hair." And you said "But when I'm big and I'm a Princess, I can have some?" Yes. When you're big and you're a Princess, you can have gum. But first, while you're still a little princess, some heartless asshole is going to steal your Hello Kitty purse, because they need the pretty rocks, Polly Pocket accessories and loose change in it more than you do.

So I went to Ebay in search of the purse. "hello kitty" + "blue" + "purse". I looked at literally thousands of listings over the course of the last year. Apparently, this particular purse was not widely distributed, because, trust me, you can find anything on Ebay. Except for a purse like the one that was stolen.

I finally hit paydirt earlier this month when I was on Ebay's German site. One vendor was selling a brand new Hello Kitty shoulder bag. Not just any bag, but THE bag. They didn't ship outside of Germany. I emailed my sad story to the contact address for the seller, but got no response. Then again, perhaps they didn't speak English and had no idea what to make of the email. Not to be deterred, I contacted a wonderful colleague across the pond who works at our German office. To cut a long story short (yeah, I know - too late for that)she bought it and shipped it to me. I gave it to my daughter last night.

Was it anti-climactic? No, not really. She was pleased to get it, but she's grown up a lot in the last year or so. She had already replaced the purse with a different Hello Kitty model. She may never even use the purse I gave her last night. But I long ago realized the search had become more about me than her. It was my feeble attempt to right a wrong and put the world back in order for both of us. As long as I can fool myself into believing that it's possible to dry up Princess tears with replacement goods, I'll always try.