Understand now, your humble neighborhood Cachinnator is only reporting here. I do not actually remember any of the events described in this post. I am only reporting them to you as they have been told to me by the Colonel. Now, normally, the word of any one family member is not sufficient to establish fact among us Bakers. But this story is corroborated by Crackhead and Brother Brentski. (The only available witnesses. Sorry, their word is as good as it gets.)

Growing up, I was a very quiet and introverted child. I read voraciously to the point that I outstripped the average college freshman by age 11. I wasn't unpopular, but neither did I have a great number of friends. So I had an imaginary friend with whom I did everything. His name was Kitchup. (Read it carefully; it's not ketchup, it's Kitchup. That spelling is an approximation, because, to the best of my knowledge I never wrote his name down.)

I don't remember much about Kitchup except that we were inseparable. I know that because every day when the Colonel came home from work he would ask me how Kitchup was. I'd always have some elaborate and imaginative description of everything that we did that day and it made the Colonel laugh. This was the routine.

One day, the Colonel came home as usual and asked, "Little Cach, how's Kitchup?"

"He's dead," I responded.

"Dead?"

"Yes, sir."

"How did he die?"

"I killed him."

"Are you sure," he asked, understandably worried at this point.

"Yes, sir."

An awkward silence followed, we sat down to dinner, and never talked about it again.

In fact, I didn't even know that this had happened until I was in college and my parents told me the story.

I wonder what Jung would have to say about that. Should I be concerned?