Despite 40 years of feline imagery, despite the protestation of thousands of anguished fans, despite her very name — Hello Kitty, it turns out, is not a cat.
She is “a friend.”
A “little girl.”
A “perpetual third-grader” living outside of London with her twin sister and parents, eating apple pie and celebrating a Nov. 1 birthday.
But never — never — an actual cat.
Dispatches From The Front 
WHY
*childhood ruined*