Supercute!

Those of you with kittens might have reached the same ground-breaking conclusion as I have; childhood is a little different than it was in the 1980's (OK, OK.....70's). For one thing, when kids play library, they make beeping noises instead of pretending to stamp things. Also, if a pretend game isn't going as planned, they pretend to "rewind" it.

One activity that the whole clowder of kittens is overly fond of these days is a Disney Web site called Pixie Hollow which is a little virtual world for Tinkerbell-type fairies. I like to investigate everything they do online assiduously after what I euphemistically call "the unfortunate incident," but could be more accurately described as plain old Bad Parenting.

One day I was letting my then two-year-old kitten watch Bugs Bunny reruns on YouTube while I got caught up on household chores. I checked on her every few minutes, and she was fine each time, except the last, when I heard a feeble little "mumma" and went in to find my sweet lovie, eyes rimmed with tears, heart racing. I learned two things that day:

a) Cool! My daughter knows how to click on stuff at age two!

b) This is the kind of thing a two-year-old might conceivable click on.

I know! Bad mumma, bad, bad, bad, bad mumma. Bad!

So I decided to check out this Pixie Hollow to make sure there were no sharp virtual objects that might flay their happy little avatar fairies in two. What I found was a gentle little world that seemed fine on the surface, but actually contained something far more sinister.....

Well come on, I'll show you. Here it is. You get to fly around and talk, make friends, play games or gather berries and nuts. I think you can use the nuts or dandelion tufts to buy sexy little outfits. But after a while, it leads to some larger philosophical questions:

"Is that all there is to life? Gathering acorns?"

These questions might even lead to some existential angst which I doubt Disney has anticipated.

"Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?"

One thing was clear. I had to leave Chilly Falls to seek the answers I was looking for.

"What do you think about the home lending crisis?"

As you might have guessed, Dewdrop and Rosemary Tulippetal had absolutely no opinion whatsoever. In fact their blind, lemming-like acquiescence to conformity left me feeling even more empty and alienated.

"We all look the same."

Daisy Prettyvalley just blinked at me and said my slippers made me look fat. Will someone please tell me why I had to shell out 50 damn acorns for slippers when we fly anyway? Would nobody listen?

For a moment it seemed like Paprika Frostdew really understood what I was saying. She even started taking notes.

"We have lost our will to be creative individuals!"

But then Chipmunk came out of nowhere and said that my opinions were dangerous and I should start watching my back. Her goon, Sadie Silktwist was getting a little too close for comfort. I got out of there in a hurry, but I gleaned two important lessons before I left.

"I want to be a big plump fairy. With hair on my arms."

First: computerized censorship is not foolproof. One little boy fairy (Who used the the word "gals." Seriously, how many people under 50 use that word?) asked my avatar "Lets. Make. Out."

Second, and perhaps the most important thing:

Let's hear it for modern childhood! Your mandatory fun: