This is something I've always meant to post, and it's something that this thread on Metafilter reminded me of.

My grandparents' house is about a mile-and-a-half from my parents' house. My grandfather passed away in May 2003 - the 1st, actually - it was his birthday. I had a tough time with it. Still miss him, something fierce.

I was over there really often growing up, and so I have memories in that house from my entire life. And one day, sometime in late '03, I guess, I was over there visiting my grandma.

She had to leave to go somewhere, so I'm just sitting there in the kitchen, since that's where Granddad always sat. I'm sitting in his chair (it's a really-pretty-awesome 60s-70's swiveling fiberglass set of chairs, but anyway) and something occurs to me.

There's a closet directly behind this chair. And when I was little, things were set up exactly as they are now. This closet is maybe two feet by two-and-a-half, and has a regular door on it.

And there's an invisible bulldog in it.

I remember this from being very young, when I'd go over there, periodically I asked him what was in that closet. And he would craaaack open the door and I'd strain to see inside, and he'd shut it real quick, "so the invisible bulldog didn't get out". I guess I never thought about feeding him...

And this must have happened several times, because I remember this as well as I do.

Fast-forward to seventeen, maybe nineteen years later. It's late 2003.

It occurs to me I'd never known what was actually in that closet.

I look, and, lo and behold...

a gas-fired water heater.

Dangerous to a kid? you bet. Was I better off for not having played around right there? Yep. No doubt that whatever was in that closet (unless it had been a teleporter, or the secret to flight, maybe) wasn't something I was gonna be excited by as an adult.

But the sudden realization that there was that one little thing, at least, that the mystery surrounded until I was 22?

Magic.