By: Chris Joker

I am invisible.  O.K. not in the traditional “you can’t see me” sense of the word but more in the electronic devices can’t see me sense.  I discovered this at an early age.  When I walked up to one of those automatic doors at the grocery store…nothing happened.  I used to jump up and down and wave like a fool in front of the electronic eye trying to get it to respond.  It never did.  I would wait until someone else would come along and sneak in with them.  Soon people started talking about me waiting outside until a “visible” would come by like some sort of freak.  I began going to the grocery store in disguises and standing outside looking at the newspaper stands to divert attention until a visible came by.  Truth be told one of the reasons I got involved with Family Pastime Magazine was so that I could pretend to put refills in the magazine stands outside grocery stores until a visible came by.  That worked fine until some stores had us put the stands inside.  Now I’m just a freak standing outside a grocery store with a stack of a hundred Family Pastime Magazines trying to look inconspicuous while I wait on a visible to open the door.  On the plus side I have sold several copies to people outside the store.  Which is no small task since it says right across the top FREE.  You may be thinking, big deal you can’t get into grocery stores without assistance and you right its not that big of a deal.  Fortunately for me this invisibility things seems to skip a generation so I almost always shop with my children.  That solves my grocery store issue however as much as I would like it my children cannot be with me 24/7.  A lot of times my children cannot be with me when I fly.  So imagine how much suspicion I arise at the airport.  I have gotten around this by bringing a huge suitcase.  Even if I am only going for a day or two I bring a suitcase the size of a small RV.  I have to hide behind the suitcase so that the sensor will see it and let me through. Now of course at check-in I have to explain to the checker that I am planning on buying a lot of things on my trip so that is why my suitcase is so big and empty or on the return trip I have to explain that I had lots of gifts in it when I left home.  One time I tried to be honest and tell the woman behind the counter that I am invisible.  She saw to it that I truly was invisible…on that flight anyway.

Over the years my powers of invisibility have grown.  Now it’s not only automatic doors but now in the modern bathroom we have (and when I say “we” I mean you because I am invisible) automatic flushing toilettes.  These are a marvel of modern technology.  No longer do we have to touch a germ encrusted flush knob in a public bathroom nor do we have to balance precariously so that we may flush it with our foot.  A bit of a side note on this, When my daughter was younger (old enough to walk and use the potty) I took her into the stall of a public restroom.  After she finished her “business” I was going to flush the potty (back in the day BEFORE the modern automatic flusher), she said “No, Daddy.  I will do it.”  She must have seen my bathroom acrobatics at some time because she was going to use her foot.  Now bear in mind she is barely taller than the toilette herself so she puts her hands on the bowl to steady herself and reaches up with her foot.  Four packages of baby wipes, two bars of soap and a container of hand sanitizer later, I explained to her why this was not so much a good idea.  O.K. so now we have the new auto-flusher toilette, which, as you might expect, I am invisible to.  So now when I finish my “business”… nothing.  There isn’t even a manual back up.  Believe me this is not a time to ask someone to come in and help you flush.  On more than one occasion I have been washing my hands and heard the next person who entered the stall shout “How rude!”  I reply, “Sorry, I’m invisible.”  “Yeah right, jerk!”  This all changes when they leave the stall and observe “invisible man” standing in front of, you guessed it, an automatic (for visibles) sink.  There I am all soaped up with no way to get the soap off.  Oh sure some of you may be thinking, just wipe it off with a paper towel.  Have you people not been living in the world of the modern automatic public restroom?????  Hello, motion detector towel dispensers and believe me you DO NOT want to use one of those hot air hand dryer blower machines on plain soapy hands. I have also discovered that I am not alone.  There are others with this strange power of invisibility.  I was going to set up some sort of support group but then I thought that we would probably end up meeting at a coffe shop which would lead to drinking coffe which would lead to the need to use the restroom which, of course would lead to no good.  So I have shelved the support group idea but to those of you who share in this strange power let me just say “Hand sanitizer”.  Hand sanitizer has become one of “invisible man’s” best friends, and makes a great stocking stuffer.