Every once in a while, I become invisible.  It happens most often when I’m waiting in line to be waited on or to gain entrance somewhere.  “Next!” the person in charge will say, looking beyond me.  Whoever is behind me steps to the front and I’m left feeling like chopped liver.

I used to think it was because of my short stature.  I have always liked that I am ‘five foot two’ and have ‘eyes of blue’ just like the song, but when people miss me completely by looking right over my head I do wish I were a tad taller.  Or I used to wish that.  Then I married Nyel who is six foot two and we soon learned that my invisibility is a contagious condition.  Height seems not to matter.

More often than you’d think possible, both of us together are invisible.  It happened just a week or so ago at a restaurant.  You know – one of those “Please wait to be seated” places that have more empty tables than full…  Sure enough, we were standing behind the velvet rope as the sign directed when the hostess approached and nodded to a couple just coming in.  “Two?  Follow me, please.”

I must say, though, that I loved the entire concept of the invisibility cloak in the Harry Potter books.  I even have the perfect looking cloak and I do, in fact, disappear inside it.  But disappearing and becoming invisible, at least in the case of my cloak, aren’t quite the same.  Anyway, if I could become invisible by donning my cloak, it would be my choice – not something thrust upon me by someone else.

Mostly, both Nyel and I have become used to the occasional bout of invisibility.  He is fairly gracious about getting the problem from me – doesn’t compare me to Typhoid Mary or anything.  But now my problems have escalated once again.  This time, clear to cyberspace!

Many computer users at the north end of the Peninsula lost power Friday afternoon due to a CenturyLink problem.  Most folks were again up and running by yesterday afternoon.  And by last evening, even Nyel could access the internet through his wireless connection.  Only I, it seems, am left without being able to connect.  I’m told it could be the LANcard in my computer.  Or it could be a faulty Ethernet cable.  Or it could be the modem.  Or the router.  No one seems to know.

But I know.  It’s the invisibility thing.  After all, this entire cyberspace situation is magic, anyway.  I don’t think the Sydney Invisibility Factor should be such a quantum leap for the techies…