make-believe

I was very young, about one or two, when I created myself an imaginary friend: it was a girl named Keshtepashta, and she had blue hair. I used to pretend she was always there playing with me, but she didn't live with me---she had her own house and parents. The phone would ring, and I'd be: "Oh, that's Keshtepashta, she said she would call me."

Once, someone rang at the door, I went to open, let Keshtepashta in, then closed the door letting the guy outside...

I used to believe…

My dad used to tell me that the orange fiery sparks that flew up the chimney from our open log fire we always had at Christmas time were fairies, off to report back to Father Christmas on my behaviour and, if I'd been good, to tell him what I wanted to unwrap on the big day...

I used to believe in Santa. My parents told me he just knew when little children were being naughty and would deduct a present from the sack he had put aside especially for me. Whenever I was naughty, Dad would call Santa to tell him about it. Although Santa was too busy to talk right then, he would always call back within seconds and Dad would pick up the phone with me watching, suddenly silent and angelic again. Years later, when I was about 10, I was told about a special number you could dial (in Australia) to test your phone ring volume. Dad said "It might come in handy when looking after your three younger brothers".

I used to believe…

My mother tells me that when I was three I had an imaginary friend called "Lady". She tells me (in a hushed voice, because I think it might have freaked her out) that I used to make everyone wait for the "Lady" to catch up with us when we went shopping together...."come on Lady..."

I used to believe…

My imagianry friend's name was Arbee, not sure if that's spelt right, I was around 3 the first time he appearing. I shared a room with my sister who was approx 1 and 1/2 years older than me and Arbee lived in a hole in our bedroom wall, on my sisters side of the room. She never saw him but he was there for me till I was almost 7. I reember explaining his absence to my family by telling them he had decided to move overseas but had sent me a postcard to tell me he was doing ok.

I used to believe…

When I heard the "Bloody Mary" ghost story as a child -- if you stand in a dark room and chant "Bloody Mary" three times, a wicked old hag will appear in the mirror and come out and kill you -- I was terrified of looking into mirrors in the darkness. I still avoid looking into the bathroom mirror until I can turn the light on...mirrors give me the creeps, and watching Poltergeist 3 when I was in my teens (the ghosts in the movie are haunting a posh apartment building where the hallways, elevators, etc have wall-to-wall mirrors, and they walked in and out of them) didn't help much, either...

I used to believe…

When we were about 7 my friend and I decided that the idea of Father Christmas being real was ridiculous. Faced with the problem of how the presents got in front of the fire place every Christmas morning we concluded that there must be a team of men in helicoptors who came down chimneys on ropes and were hauled up by the rest of their team. I imagined these men to look like Batman. I believed this until I was about 10.

I used to believe…

when my brother was little, he used to think their were monsters in his room, so one day, i took an old hair spray bottle, filled it with water, and wrote "anti-monster spray" in big letters on the side i sprayed it around his room, and the next day, he told me it really worked and he slept fine.

i don't know why i did something nice that time for my little bro, we usually fought all the time. the reason he couldn't go to sleep in the first place was probably because of the spooky shapes i drew on his bedroom door with leftover glow-in-the-dark halloween makeup...

I believed in Santa until I was at least 11. My father used to go up on the roof with some jingle bells and ring them in the middle of the night. I remember peeking out into the living room one Christmas eve and seeing Santa's bum! Really I did!

I used to believe…

Walking through the woods near my Grandma's house one day I came upon a small wooden treasure chest filled with treasures. I was sure the woods-fairies put it there, not my Grandma. She has never confessed!

I used to believe…

When I was about seven, I was convinced that Jesus was an alien for a while, and that all those miracles were just him using his advanced alien technology. I got into a long argument with my dad over that, and eventually he conceded that, yes, Jesus could have been an alien.

I used to believe that elfs lived in the hedge at the bottom of my garden!!

I used to believe when I was about 3 or 4 in 1950, that there were a population of tiny people made of paper called "The Saturdays". They were triangular shaped and lived on a night-shift basis. When they went to bed at dawn, they would hang themselves up on the nails in a vertically stored "Bagatelle Board" kept in a cupboard under the stairs.

I don't think the bagatelle board was ever in use and we never went into that cupboard by day as it was dark and there were Saturdays in there asleep.

My parents told me I really did believe they lived in there and came out when I was asleep.

I used to believe…

when i was really young, i had curtains in my bedroom, that had clouds and aeroplanes on them, and every christmas eve i would look at them and see reindeers made out of the overlapping clouds (this was when i believed), but any other day i could never see them.

I had imaginary friends named Susie, Tommy, Debra Lee and Frog Ass. To this day I don't know why he had that name. I used to make my family set plates for them at dinner. My sister's boyfriend made the mistake of sitting on one of them and I started screaming at him. My sister was mortified.

I used to believe…

One year I actually lost my tooth as in I couldn't find it to put it under my pillow. I was so sure that I wasn't going to get any money because of it. My mom finally had me write the Tooth Fairy a letter explaining what happened so that I would stop freaking out.