Stealer of Imaginary Friends

So, I'm driving down the road with my friend, Lora, after going to the gym. We get into a conversation about her kiddo's imaginary jaguar. She tells me that this morning they actually had to go back into the house because the poor kid left his jaguar inside. As she told me this, I replied, "why didn't you just tell him that you'd already let the kitty out to go to the bathroom? And then whistle for him." Lora laughed and said "wow, you're good at this. Did ya have many imaginary friends when you were a kid?"


Well that got me thinking and it got me laughing. And I went to explain, "Not only did I have imaginary friends, but I had alter egos too!" My friend went to laughing and I continued to explain. "First, for some reason, I loved the name Francine. I told everyone my name was Francine. Somewhere along the way I decided that instead of being Francine, I was going to be Superman. Occasionally Clark Kent, but usually Superman. Oh, and Mom was Lois Lane, Dad was Perry White, and Kati was Jimmy Olsen. Oh, she hated that. She didn't want to be the lowly copy editor."


Lora cracks up. "I can't believe you know all their names!" she exclaims between giggles.


"You have no idea," I reply, shaking my head. "Anyway, I was Superman for awhile and I guess it was during that time that since I was no longer Francine, she became my imaginary friend. Then I added Janet and Sissyanne."


By now, Lora is rolling.


"Oh it gets worse. Sissyanne was originally Kati's imaginary friend. I stole her."


Lora nearly drives off the road. "You stole your sister's imaginary friend?! How do you steal someone's imaginary friend?!"


Again, I shook my head. "I was mean. I punked my little sister out of all kinds of stuff. It wasn't limited to imaginary friemds." I paused for a minute, thinking. "Wow. I punked my little sister out of her imaginary friend." I can't help but snicker.


Lora is still laughing. "I can't believe you. I'm going to call you 'The Stealer of Imaginary Friends'! It's going to read that on your tombstone in 90 years."


"At least I let her keep Birdyhouse," I reply, somewhat indignantly.


"Birdyhouse?!"


"Well yeah, to this day, I remember standing out in our backyard. Kati and I were arguing about who had more imaginary friends. We're both shouting names at each other. 'I have Francine!' I holler. 'Oh yeah? Well I have uh...um, Birdyhouse!' Kati yells back quite triumphantly as she looks around the backyard, search for a name. We were pretty young and since Kati was younger, she ran out of names faster. I guess when her eyes fell on a birdhouse, she thought that it would be the perfect name for her new imaginary friend. One I wouldn't think of first," I explained.


"Did you steal that one too?" Lora asked, glancing at me as she exited the highway.


I shook my head vigorously. "No, I thought that Birdyhouse was lame and I told her so."


Lora laughed again. "That's terrible."


Could it be true? Was I terrible? So I thought to myself, 'I wonder if she'd forgive me if I gave Sissyanne back...'