Imaginary Friends Don't Use Bathrooms

     There is a playful innocense in childhood.  Imaginations drift to their furthest potential in those young developing years.  Somewhere in time we lose that creativity in our minds.  We stop using that playfulness our minds can produce and replace it with an older way of thinking.  Here, I think back to that time when I was a young child who had fun with an imagination that was endless.

     I was the youngest in my family.  My brother is 4 years older than me and my sister is 7 years older.  There were times when I wanted to play a game that was more in my age range like Candy Land or Go Fish and no one wanted to play with me.  I would ask my mom but she would be preoccupied with something.  Often she would tell me to play on my own.  And I did.  I invented a friend.  Jody was her name.  She was about my age, dark hair and great at everything.  We would play games or Barbies, go on adventures outside, dance and even swing on the swingset.  I had a great vivid imagination and sometimes my imagination would step outside of the boundries and leak into the real world. 

     One day Nonnie, that is what we called our grandmother, was watching me.  I think my mom was at a school event for my brother and sister.  Nonnie was busy doing something and "Jody" and I were busy playing house.  We would act like we had important guests coming over for tea and we were preparing for their arrival.  We even dressed up for the occasion. 

     I excused myself to use the bathroom.  A pretend knock was at the door.  "Hang on, Jody.  I am almost done."  I would call out.

     I opened the bathroom door.  "Oh, You have to use it too, Jody?"  It may have looked like I was starting off into thin air but in my mind "Jody" was really there.  "Okay, you can use it now.  I will even lock the door for you so you can have some privacy."  I turned the lock and shut the door.   I went back to my bedroom and resumed setting my bed up to be used for the tea party.  We had very important stuffed animal guests that were to arrive at any moment now.

     Our house had 2 bathrooms in it.  Actually one was a half bath.  It was very small.  A daddy long-leg spider often camped out in a small web in the corner right above the toilet.  My sibilings and I avoided that bathroom because of it.  The spider could of used the advantage of us sitting on the toilet to swing down on its web and crawl into our ears and lay eggs.  It probably wouldn't of happened but we were young and we didn't want to take any chances.  Our main bathroom was the only door in the house that had a lock on it besides the doors that lead outside.  This was our main bathroom in the house.  

     Nonnie comes around the corner to use the bathroom and found out it was locked.  "Jill?"  she asks seeing if I was in there.

     "I am in here."  I call out to her from my bedroom.

     Confusion crosses her face.  "If you are in the bedroom who is in the bathroom?"

     "Jody is in there."  I state matter of factly.

     "Oh, I didn't know you had a little friend over.  When did she come over?"  Nonnie says as she is entering my bedroom. 

     "She's been over.  She's my imaginary friend!"  I said giggling. 

     Nonnie looked at me with her eyes popping out of her head, "Your IMAGINARY friend?"

     "Yep,"  I reply innocently back, "She had to use the bathroom." 

     "How are we supposed to open the door!?"  Nonnie asks the question out in the air rather than to me.  "I need to use it!"

     She quickly goes to use the smaller bathroom.  She came back with a coat hanger that was straigtened out.  She used one end and stuck it into a tiny hole in the door handle trying to unlock the door.  It wasn't working.  The lock was the kind that you had to push in and twist.  She ended up calling my mom's boyfriend to come over and see if he could do something to open the door.  He came over and they both pondered over the door. 

     I remember sitting on my bed, across from the bathroom, hearing them trying different techniques to open it.  I even heard talk of taking down the door.  As a child it sounded like a major project.  I felt horrible.  I didn't mean to cause such a commotion.  Nonnie somehow knew I was upset.  She came in to talk with me.  She told me that I should of known better than to lock the door with no one inside.  She went on saying it is fine to have imaginary friends but have them lock the door by themselves next time.   I remember laughing at that.  The door finally opened and all was well with the world again.  "Jody" and I resumed our tea party as we had our important guest waiting. 

     Somewhere in the time of growing up "Jody" faded away.   I cannot help but smile as I look back at my childhood and my over active imagination. 

Beware! The Lava Monster

     I love being outdoors, especially when I was a child.  My imagination ran wild with crazy ideas and thoughts.  I would feel invincible and unstoppable.  When breakfast was over I quickly tossed on shorts and a t-shirt and spend the day outside in our fenced backyard. 

     We had a wonderful swingset with neat accesssories.  On one end was a swinging teeter-totter, followed by a swing.  Then it had a set of rings to swing on followed by another swing.  Just on the other side of that was a swinging bench then a metal slide.  The end of the slide can be raised up and when propped carefully it can be used as a level platform.  There was a small gap then there were a set of monkey bars.  There was a post that stuck out horizontally from each of the four corners of the monkey bars that each supported a swing.  At times we would stretch one of our swings chain links from one end of the monkey bars to the other side.  Creating such a long stretch raised the swing seat up very high but it didn't give much chain slack swing to it.  Nonetheless it was still fun to be sitting up high.  We even had a trapeese bar that we would hook up to another post of the monkey bars. 

     We had a strong tree that created a "V" shape near the base of the trunk.  From one of the posts that stick out you can swing yourself to the "V" of the tree.  In my imagination when I would pass through the "V" of the tree it turned into a porthole to take me to another world, a world of mystery and magic and adventures.  I would have to do some daring stunt in order to claim a lost soul and find my way back to the "V" and return to normal Earth.

     I was amazing at doing tricks on my swingset.  I could flip around using the rings or the trapeeze bar.  I could walk on top of the monkey bars from one side to the other and flip on down to the ground.  There was a bar that hung over the slide and it was nothing for me to twirl over the bar and hear the metal echoing sound of my feet hitting the slide.  I had no fear.  I was in my youth. When I fell I would brush myself off and get back up determined to master the trick I was trying to accomplish. 

     There was one game my sister, brother and I loved playing.  The Lava Monster!  One of us would be the Lava Monster.  Generally, since I was the youngest, I was usually picked to be the Lava Monster.  My other sibilings had to start at one end of the swingset.  Without placing a foot on the groud they had to shimmy their way across the swingset, jump from the slide to the monkeybars and make their way to safe, which was the "V" of the tree.  If a foot were to touch the ground then I was able to tag them and pull them into the lava (off the swingset) and they would become The Lava Monster.  Then it was my turn to skedaddle across.  I can still remember the burn and the blisters on my hand from gripping too hard on the top bar of the swingset making sure I didn't let go. 

     Unfortunally time took its toll and we grew up and moved away leaving behind our swingset and The Lava Monster.  That was a time before video games, before computers and cell phones.  This was a time in history where children relied on their imagination and creativity to pass the time.  Those where the good ol' days of summer.