A childhood belief about imaginary friends

When I was about three or four, my parents took me to France for a holiday. I had recently watched Puff the Magic Dragon, and it was my favourite film. One day, we were walking down a busy boulevard, when my old man told me a rather amazing story about Puff. He told me that he had been stuck on an island when he was small, and that Puff had rescued him, and that only kids rescued by Puff could talk to him. He said that since he'd been rescued, he was allowed to give one other person the gift of being able to speak to Puff, and he gave that gift to me. Apparently, when you talked to Puff, only you and puff could hear it.

This resulted in me running down the boulevard, getting odd looks as I yelled at the top of my voice, "PUFF PUFF I LOVE YOU PUFF! YOU'RE MY BEST FRIEND PUFF!" to some nonexistant dragon. My dad will never let me forget about that day..