Invisible

Colleen once admitted that as an only child she'd had an invisible friend. Her friend was named Martha, and although Martha was from a rich family, she never acted that way. Colleen and Martha would meet over tea, where they shared stories and talked about their day. In addition to being a good friend, Martha was also nice about being sat upon- again and again.

Martha remained polite when this happened, which was often. When the cat climbed into her lap, Martha enjoyed the opportunity to stroke its caramel colored fur, according to Colleen. But being sat upon eventually took its toll. Even though she never uttered a word about this discomfort, she sadly dealt with various injuries.

Colleen explained that that was why they had parted as friends: Martha had become annoyed because Colleen's family members so frequently and impolitely sat down without checking to see if anyone was already in the seat.

I think that Martha went away soon after Colleen's little sister, Lily, came along, when Colleen now had a real little girl to play with. Of course, I never brought this up to Colleen. Invisible friends seem to be commonplace, and must never be challenged. After all, Martha was her best friend before I was. How could I ever compete with that? Well, at least I was seldom sat upon.

To keep me humble-as frequently happens - I had the worst afternoon coming home from work the other day. My car died! My precious shiny red convertible was the only nice thing I owned. This was my fourth car, and I bought it almost new. I am nearly finished making payments on it, so soon it will really be mine. I can't wait. Of course, when making car payments and washing and waxing the car to keep it at a continuous shine, sometimes there is no extra money for gas. So when it rattled to a stop, I knew exactly what was wrong: I had been ignoring that needle on the instrument panel, which was now resting on the empty mark.