Because Microsoft can't think of anything else to add to its word processing program, it has fallen back upon the heinous refuge of the marketing hack: a cute, animated cartoon.

At the bottom right corner of the screen in the latest version of Word is an animated paper clip with eyes. Clicking on it links me to the program's "help" function, which shows how to make Word do things I do not actually want it to do, such as convert all 81 words I've written so far into a giant headline font that I can't get rid of until I reboot the machine.

So I avoid the paper clip, and it stares at me - sometimes lounging, sometimes looking around, bored. Right now it appears hurt and confused by what I'm writing about it.

Why am I supposed to want this? Why is cuteness constantly being thrust upon me? I found some answers in the world capitol of cute, Asia.

"Taxi drivers have entire collections of Winnie the Pooh figurines across the dashboard, or Pokemon gearshift covers," said Dr. Julia Gardner, who teaches a class in cuteness at the National University of Singapore. "I've seen news broadcasts on some of the Chinese language stations in which the news presenter is shown at her desk with stuffed animals right in front of her."

And in January 2000, riots broke out at some of the McDonald's in Singapore, when outlets began offering a different pair of Hello Kitty characters every week to customers who purchased an Extra Value Meal. Teenagers would storm in and offer hundreds of dollars for the dolls. Arguments and fist fights broke out in the long lines. One mob pressed so hard against a restaurant that the plate-glass door shattered and seven people were injured.

Sometime around then, Gardner - a specialist in Victorian literature and culture, with a doctorate from the University of California at Riverside - developed her cuteness class as part of the National University's writing and critical thinking series.

So she would be the one to ask: What makes something "cute," anyway?

"The more I teach the class, the more I wonder if there's really one answer to that," Gardner said. "Conventionally, cute figures usually have oversized features (large eyes, oversized head) although they also can have disproportionately small features as well." They also usually feature bright primary colors, though "pink certainly looms large in association with cute."

However, "the problem with defining cute is that cuteness often walks a fine line with the grotesque," Gardner said. "For instance some people think Teletubbies are cute, while some find them repellent or even kind of frightening."

As well they should. One definition of the grotesque is that human characteristics combine with inhuman ones, into a cursed accident of nature: a creature that is half toddler and half television, or a paper clip that is secretly planning to eat my eyeballs while I sleep.

Yet, what we want from cute objects seems to be a sense of well-being, a recovery of innocence. "My hunch is it represents some attempt to make the world seem less dangerous and scary," Gardner said. Plant enough stuffed bears nearby, and you feel like you're in your old crib, even though you're actually in a Singapore taxi that smells like body odor and scotch.

Then, too, "cute objects are usually helpless looking," Gardner said. "You could read this helplessness as giving rise to protective or nurturing impulses." Large eyes, oversized head, pink: It's a baby. The paper clip wants my deepest feelings - those that I reserve for my parents, friends and, if I ever get my act together, children.

It wants me to take whatever love I have and apply it to a line drawing that a graphic artist in Bellingham, Wash., pitched to Microsoft after another client turned down a similar idea for a dancing sheep dog that sells Pepsi. And hey, maybe I should take love where it's offered. The animated paper clip is my friend and angel, my innocence and my baby. It means that I am protective and, in turn, protected.

But I swear to God, I'm going to kill it.