I have an imaginary friend. No, it's not time to order a straitjacket or lock me up. I'm really not crazy. Sometimes I just need to enlist the loving support of a buddy and he fills the bill.

I haven't officially given the little fella a name but he looks just like Pinocchio's little pal, Jiminy Cricket who played the part of Pinocchio's conscience, but my little guy is more like a cheerleader. For instance, when I run into a cantankerous neighbor in my apartment building, he will silently advise me, "Just say hello and keep walking."

When my friend's husband constantly interrupts our conversations and talks over us, my little alter ego tells me to stare hard at him and keep saying "Excuse me, " enunciating slowly, until he shuts up.

When my son drives too fast for my liking, my pint-sized companion will suggest I practice making the sign of the cross rather than applying the imaginary brake in front of the passenger seat so hard I might injure myself or damage the carpeting. And when I visit my daughter with her ever-growing menagerie of pets, he will make sure to remind me to bring along my lint roller. In those bygone days before our phones informed us who was calling and they couldn't leave a recorded message, if I was busy with the kids or writing my column for the newspaper, somehow he would know it was my mother-in-law and say, "Don't pick it up now, Kathy. She'll call you back." And when I forget someone's name and start searching through the dusty corridors of my brain, he will prompt me: "Okay. It starts with a B."

He is especially helpful when I screw up. "Of course you banged the car into that Jersey barrier! Who wouldn't? They put it in the wrong place!" Or, "You wouldn't have missed your appointment with the accountant if the cat didn't hide your little calendar notebook under the pillow."

Lately, I make these mistakes more often than I used to. If it wasn't for him, I would be black and blue from head to toe from beating myself up, but he never gives me a guilt trip or calls me stupid.

I've started calling him Jimmy for short, and no, you can't borrow him. You'll have to get an imaginary little friend of your own.