Most kids have imaginary friends.
I had an imaginary theater critic.
He’d go on and on about Broadway flops and the Tony Awards, or the latest Sondheim production.
I’d yell at him to shut the hell up.
We lived in Iowa. We never went to Broadway.
We didn’t go to the movies or watch plays on television, either.
I never tried out for plays in school because I was homeschooled.
I thought about trading with my friends for their imaginary friends, but I didn’t have any.
Because I was homeschooled, and my only friend was Bert, raving about South Pacific.