There are monsters in our home. At least that's what my 4-year-old has been saying to me. Monsters in his closet and under his bed. Monsters behind the door and in the shadows overhead. Monsters like it here in the wild, he says. They are here to scare him, and they are here to stay.

I am not a fan of imaginary "friends." Though I don't particularly remember having the hairy, jagged-toothed and horned kind, I do remember Sara. Sara Bankfield was my imaginary "friend," and she was the worst. A rich girl, plucked from the pages of my American Girl stories, Sara had a personality as foul as my kid's monster's breath. She would boss me around and tell me what to do, and I would always get in trouble for it. Not her! Me!

Sara was blind, you see (blind in the way a 7-year-old understands blindness). So she needed my help to do everything — which was most irksome when she just had to steal that candy bar from the convenience store or when she just had to trip my brother because he said Michelangelo was the best Ninja Turtle, not Donatello. (As if this could even be debated. Purple bandanas forever!) But of course, she couldn't steal the candy bar or trip my brother, because she couldn't see, so I was coerced into doing it for her. I didn't want to; it was all Sara's influence. Yet I still got in trouble despite asserting to parents, principals and occasionally local police that I was doing nothing more than being a class-act, A-plus Samaritan by helping out my seeing-impaired acquaintance. Isn't this what Oprah would have wanted me to do? Isn't this being my best self?

Adults would roll their eyes at my justification. I often wondered whether Sara rolled hers, too, but I could never see them behind her sunglasses. Perhaps karma is the reason my son is legally blind in one eye. Too dark?

Speaking of dark, that's when the monsters come out to harass my son. Yet it seems that even with the lights on, they still linger just out of view, where only my son can see them. I asked him to describe the monsters to me, and they sounded terrible. Seven eyes. One hundred claws, shark teeth and octopus legs. They had spiked horns and lots of hair.

Lots of hair, you say?

In contrast to Sara's ugly personality, she had beautiful hair. And I have always had a thing about hair. I was quite jealous of my imaginary "friend." But I'll let you in on a little secret. When Sara was being particularly mean, I would cut her long locks. Or dye them! Or perm! She would look ridiculous. Oh, how I would laugh. And the best part was that she never knew I had done anything to her tresses because she couldn't see what I had done! (This clearly showcased my comprehension of vision impairment, as well as my need for therapy. The problem was that I preferred an imaginary therapist so she would inherently understand the nuances of dealing with imaginary people, but where does one find such a psychologist? Not that Sara would've gone for any kind of counseling. She didn't believe in therapy. Or fairies. Which just goes to show what kind of person she was.)

Luckily, decades after our relationship ended and I decided to stop conjuring up her image in my mind, something good has come from Sara. The hair. Oh, how delightfully ridiculous she looked with her mohawk. And if this beautiful girl looked hilarious with crazy hair, wouldn't a crazy monster look hilarious with beautiful hair?

I told my son of a magic I possess to change the hair of the creatures unseen. Did he want me to show him? He nodded.

"Point to a monster," I said. He nodded toward the corner.

"Poof! I just gave that evil monster sparkly unicorn hair. Doesn't he look ridiculous?"

My son laughed, in full agreement. "Now do that one!"

"Poof," I said. "Do you see the long Elsa hair on that crazy-looking monster?"

My kid was delighted.

The monsters are still in our house, unfortunately. But now, instead of a nightly terror brigade, we have salon hour. And I must say, I'm getting pretty jealous of the monsters' locks, too.

Katiedid Langrock is author of the book "Stop Farting in the Pyramids," available at http://www.creators.com/books/stop-farting-in-the-pyramids. Like Katiedid Langrock on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/katiedidhumor. To find out more about her and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.