An Invisible Friend

Like most everyone else, I think that television commercials are mostly to give us an opportunity to get up and get something to drink or to go the restroom or something without interrupting the actual show we are watching. For the most part, I am not a big fan of commercials. I can tolerate commercials that are just being informational. But when they are trying to be funny, well lets just say that the majority of them I find irritating. I think they insult our intelligence or they make light of people that are troubled with deep personal problems. When a company that is trying to sell you their cellular telephone service by claiming that static on the old cell phone is what is causing a couple?s marital problems, I just can?t find the commercial acceptable.

Occasionally, however, a company comes across with a commercial that for whatever reason, I really enjoy. It may be because I find humor in them. Back at Christmas time one of the office supply stores had a commercial on with a robot that I thought was very funny. They called it a snowbot. The snowbot helped to sell some of the store?s consumer electronics at Christmas time that is until someone wanted to buy the snowbot?s girlfriend, a computer printer, I believe she was. When his girlfriend was taken away he started saying weeping, weeping until he is given a new girlfriend, a computer extension cord with surge protector. Whenever I saw it I laughed. Other companies have had humorous commercials as well.

One commercial that has been on recently that I enjoy though it isn?t particularly funny is a commercial for Kraft?s new macaroni and cheese product called EZ Mac. The commercial features a boy and his sister. I probably like it because I could see much of myself in the 12 or 13 year old boy. As the commercial begins the boy and a friend are eating the EZ Mac. His sister walks in and asks the friend if the brother impressed him with his ability to boil water and add noodles and cheese. The brother snaps back, "Don?t you have an invisible friend you can go play with?" Not to be out done she comes back with the quick reply, "Not if you?re sitting on her." With that the brother half way stands and then drops back down in the chair on top of the "invisible friend." The commercial continues on talking about the product and the sister corners the brother, having him make her a serving of EZ Mac.

Like I said, I see much of myself in the commercial. But, I also think that I like the commercial because I see something else there. There is a real dose of reality in the little sister?s invisible friend. While I would hesitate to say that most kids have invisible friends at some point in their lives, I don?t have the data to support that assumption, I do know that many kids have invisible friends. It is a fairly common phenomena of childhood for many kids.

Some kids have invisible friends because there are no other kids around from them to play with. Every child wants to play with other kids. When there are no other kids around, does the desire to play disappear? I don?t think so. As a result the child uses his or her imagination to create a play companion. Then at the tea party or at the ball game, there is someone with whom they can enjoy the playtime.

In other cases kids come up with invisible friends because their real friends are human. The real friends make mistakes. The real friends hurt them and upset them. Real friends let them down. And, while all of those things are true for all of us, from young children all the way to our oldest adults, when these disappointments happen, it doesn?t make them any easier to handle and accept. For we adults, young and old alike, and also the youth I think it is easier to accept than for kids. By the time one becomes an adult we have experienced these kinds of things enough, usually in the giving and the receiving, that most of the time we accept them and move on with the hope that things will work out differently next time.

With young children it is a different story. They don?t yet have the experience to realize that these kinds of things do happen. They happen to everyone, including them and their friends. What is more, they haven’t yet realized that even they can be the one who lets down a friend. As a result, children will often retreat into the world of their imagination where everything goes their way and where their friends would never hurt them or let them down.