Imaginary Friends

What does it mean when a child says his imaginary friends are bothering him?

When I picked up DuckyBoy from school/camp today, he told me the Nothings had been bothering him.

The Nothings are a passel of invisible critters shaped like ... shapes. Circles, squares, triangles, rectangles and, I think, hexagons. If I remember correctly, they are all purple. Whole families. Some hatch from eggs and other are mammals, and they switch with each generation -- so the Nothings that hatched from eggs bear live young, and so on.

But today they were hitting, kicking, and pinching -- though I opined that it must be hard to tell those actions apart since the Nothings have no arms, legs, hands, etc.

Sometimes Ducky, his other imaginary friend, up and moves to New Zealand with no warning and we have to call Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and get things straightened out with the powers that be (which we have, of course, imagined -- we never speak to any particular character from the show; nor does this idea exactly fit the concept of the show).

But today was different. DB told me to talk to the Nothings and to threaten to shut down the Nothing Day Care Center -- which is what we played on Thursday afternoon I think -- and then DB even invented a time machine to transport them all to another time so they could taste life without him.

All but one; the tiniest Nothing baby stayed behind and rode on the steering wheel until DB invented a return time machine and brought everyone else back. (All this took place in the car on the way to gymnastics.)

They were much chastened, I guess, since they said and did no more.

I think he was upset with someone and just couldn't quite deal with the reality.