It doesn't matter if you're an older millennial or a younger millennial; odds are you grew up watching Hey Arnold!
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And Hey Arnold! has always been a bit more human and true-to-life than some of the other cartoons we grew up watching. It was never afraid to get serious — I just didn't realize how serious it really was until now.
Helga Pataki? She never had it easy. I mean, her love for her crush was always unrequited. And at home? She was living in her older sister's shadow.
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But recently — and don't ask me why — I was scrolling through the Hey Arnold! wiki when I arrived on Miriam Pataki's page.
And when I read this paragraph in particular, I spit out all of my coffee directly at my laptop screen. Suddenly, certain parts of this show started to make a lot more sense...
Fandom / Via heyarnold.fandom.com
The smoothies? I remember those...
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...she was constantly...
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...drinking...
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...smoothies.
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And the passing out? As a kid I thought nothing of it. But now? I can't stop thinking about how tired she always was.
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Miriam just could not stay awake. And when she was awake, she sounded really tired and, uh, not sober.
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These hints aren't subtle either. They're right out there in the open. But apparently the writers decided to make Miriam's drinking problem even more explicit, not to mention disturbing...
In a Season 3 episode titled, "Road Trip," Miriam drives very erratically and at one point almost drives off the road.
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That very same season, the Patakis hire a nanny to watch after Helga because Miriam has to do mandatory community service.
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And in case they weren't being explicit enough, Season 4 features an episode where Miriam drops Helga off at school. It's here we learn that Miriam not only got her driver's license taken away, but she's also driving without it.
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And that very same episode? It opens with Miriam looking for her Tabasco sauce, which she keeps in what appears to be her liquor cabinet...
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...which means she presumably uses it to make "smoothies."
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In conclusion, Miriam Pataki has a drinking problem and I don't know how I didn't notice it sooner.
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