Imaginary Friend

After I got back from dinner last night I mindlessly turned on the tv and started flipping channels. "Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird" caught my attention. This is the movie where the bird social worker thinks it's in Big Birds best interest to go live with a bird family- the Dodos who live in Illinois. Big Bird dislikes it there and decideds to walk home (he/she also decides that it should only take three hours since it took two hours to fly there). While Big Bird starts walking home the Sesame Street crew divide up into groups and travel different routes to see if they can find Big Bird. The point of this post is not to talk about how great this movie is or about the cameos in it that you only get when you are older, but rather the point is to discuss a very important question that hit me while watching a scene in the move: is Snuffalupagus Big Bird's imaginary friend?

I'll admit. The thought never crossed my mind that Snuffalupagus was imaginary until someone informed me about it very matter-of-factly about a year ago. They told me in such confidence that I didn't dare think that I was right. Now, though, I am not so sure. As I was watching the movie I texted a very important question to some friends: If Snuffalupagus was Big Bird's imaginary friend then how come he couldn't follow Big Bird to Illinois? Some of the responses I got were:

"I'm peeing"

"Thought Snuffy was real"

"R u sober?"

"He wasn't imaginary and the bird was advised that he/she was on a one bird mission."

"Imaginary friends...unlike invisible friends need two forms of id to cross state lines and Oscoar was always hiding the dmv shit because he was difficult...obviously"

Through these comments I re-affirmed my original childhood assumption that Snuffy was real and that everyone could see him. Then I thought about a little to long and fell into another trap. If everyone could see Snuffy then when a letter from Big Bird came why didn't anyone tell Snuffy? Instead he overheard the letter through a wall. If I sent a letter to everyone on the block I know someone would holler to my best friend to let them know about it. Also, if I remember correctly, Snuffy wasn't divided up into one of the groups to go find Big Bird. Now that could be just because he already decided to go visit Big Bird (he wrote Big Bird a post card which a mailman delivered...which is proof towards the idea that Snuffy is real). So is Snuffy real or not?

Some light was shed onto the subject by a friend's girlfriend who said that snuffy was imaginary in the beginning but eventually the character changed so that everyone could see him. So a child psychologist is to blame for the confusion. Someone at some point thought it was unhealthy for Big Bird to have an imaginary best friend and changed him to so that everyone could see him. This is the theory that lets me sleep at night and I am sticking to it.