Boo Gotcha-Gotcha!
Happy Inventor's Day to our German, Austrian and Swiss pals!
Maybe the following should have been told on Halloween but, I wasn’t sure if ya’ll were ready for this:
Some of you might have noticed in a previous posting that I talked about the ghost lady that lives in my house. I’m sure that you all just passed over it without giving a second thought to it. I made mention to her because…well, because she is real. I have a ghost that lives in the house with the School Girl and me. Now I know what some of you might be thinking. “Sure, I have heard the stories but I bet he is making it all up.” Let me assure you that this is not all made up.
This all started not too long after we moved into our house. That was January 2004. The School Girl and I had only been married about 4 months. I am not sure of the actual timeframe between the occurrences, but I will list them here as best as I can. Now our house is old, built in 1946 or so and I am sure that this adds to the creepiness of it all. The couple that we purchased our house from only lived there for about a year before they moved. That seems a little odd but now looking back I wonder if the Old Lady spooked them out. This couple bought the house from the family of an older woman that lived and raised her children in the house for about 25 years. My neighbor, the Old Man Next Door, says that her kids moved her to a retirement community but I’m not hearing that. Sounds like poppy-cock to me (I said…never mind). I have no proof but I have the feeling that either she or someone else died in my house.
Not long after we got everything set up and just the way we like it, strange things began to happen. The first thing can easily be brushed away with the fact that, again, we live in an old house. We would hear (and still do, of course) a lot of creaking sounds. The difference with these creaks and your everyday, run of the mill creaks is that they always sound like they are coming from the same place…the stairs up to our bedroom. Now, our bedroom is really just a converted attic with shoddy drywall, etc. Numerous times we have heard noises that sound eerily similar to footsteps. I get the impression that someone (or something) is walking up or down those steps. Obviously, we just started to ignore this.
Not too long afterwards, another interesting phenomenon began to occur. On top of a CD/DVD cabinet we kept a small mortar (of mortar and pestle fame) that was made of grey marble. Inside of this mortar we kept the boutonnière that I wore in our wedding. Every few days, as I would walk past the CD/DVD cabinet, I would notice that the boutonnière would be outside of the mortar lying directly on top of the cabinet. Now after several occurrences I directly asked The School Girl if she was doing this because it was starting to get on my nerves. To my dismay, she claimed to not have even touched the flowers. This seemed pretty odd to me.
We used to have a framed, glass fronted piece of art that sat on top of the mantle of our fireplace. Note the keyword here is “was”. Sitting in front of the picture were many knick-knacks and small decorative items. One evening The School Girl and I were in the kitchen preparing dinner when all of a sudden we heard a large crash. The cacophony emanated from the living room where our fireplace was located. To our dismay the large picture had come rushing towards the bricked hearth and the glass shattered into a myriad of different sized pieces. We wondered aloud as to what might have knocked it off of the mantle when we realized a strange scenario had come about. All of the small items that were on the mantle in front of the picture had remained in their original location. After investigating how this might have occurred, we determined that the picture could only have been lifted from where it sat to bypass the knick-knacks…but how could this have happened?
The bizarre happenings did not end here. I happen to sleep like a stone. Not much can wake me up so I was not conscious when my wife was scared out of her wits one evening. Apparently, in a dead sleep she was started straight up in bed when someone or something screamed in her ear. She claims that it was the sound of a woman’s voice that woke her and when she looked around there was nothing to be found. I pushed this off as a dream until a month or so later I had the same exact experience. Ok so now this was getting freaky, but beyond moving what was I going to do?
We pretty much just joke around about the Ghost Lady that lives with us as do our families and friends. At this point there really wasn’t any hard evidence such as seeing a ghost or seeing something floating around. If this was the end of the story, I would just chalk these up as coincidences. Of course, this wasn’t the end of our story.
On one of our side coffee tables in our living room is a Civil War chess board. The School Girl and I are avid history fans, especially the U.S. Civil War. I enjoy playing a good game once in awhile but mostly it is there for decoration. One evening when The School Girl was in class and I was all alone, I noticed that an opening move had been played from the Confederate side. I figured that my wife had decided to begin a game with me so I made a counter move. Several days passed without any mention of the moved pieces being made by either of us until about a week later. The School Girl asked me if I was playing a game of chess by myself because of the moved chess pieces. Astounded, I proceeded to tell her that I thought she had moved first so I countered and was waiting for her to play again. She had not touched any of the pieces!
I told some of my co-workers about my experiences with the Ghost Lady. Initially, KP The Don was freaked out of her gourd. The others, including Big Guy, Xantastic and Jefe all made jokes including that the Old Ghost Lady would dance with me and sit on my lap as I…sat on my throne! Yes, these people are bizarre! (sorry guys, but it is true).
Earlier this year, she made herself visible to me. Now, generally, my morning ritual includes waking up, uhh…sitting on the throne and then going for breakfast. Most mornings The School Girl would follow me downstairs while the HPIC (Head Pooch In Charge), Fandango (our white Chihuahua) would follow her to the back door to be let outside. This one particular morning as I was…throning, I saw my wife walk by the open bathroom door as Fandango followed her to the back door. When I exited the bathroom, my wife was coming through the door from upstairs and Fandango was sitting patiently at the back door. This surprised me because I thought that she was already downstairs. When I asked her about this she claimed that she was just now getting downstairs! So who did I watch walk by the door? Who did Fandango follow? Ok this was nuts! It was official in mind at this point. We lived with a ghost!
Now, most ghost stories tend to have something a little creepier than what I have shared today. Well, there is one more part to this story. A month or so ago, we had a little cookout that included friends and families. I had folding lawn chairs that I left on my side porch due to my extreme laziness. One Saturday, The School Girl was shopping at the local Wal-Mart and the sky was uneasy to say the least. Rain was imminent. The wind was whipping, tossing the tree branches around. I heard a clanking from outside on the side porch. The chairs had toppled over. I decided that the loss of these chairs (my mom’s), was not a good idea. I proceeded to put my shoes on and head out the front door, walk around to the side porch to bring my mom’s chairs in side. I walked up the steps to the porch, folded the chairs and struggled to carry them around to the front. Due to the age of our house, the front door is a little unleveled. This prevents the door from staying open on its own. I, of course, forgot to prop the door open. I struggled with the screen door as I was lugging the folded chairs into the front entryway. It was at this point that I stopped dead in my tracks. For the first time in almost three years, my front door swung all the open to allow easy entrance by myself and the chairs. I shook of my surprise, proceeded to walk through the doorway and place the chairs down on the ground. At this point, the door proceeds to shut with a hard bang. I could only stand in utter disbelief as I uttered a reluctant, “Thank you”. I didn’t want to be rude to the now Casparian ghost that obviously felt the need to assist in my struggles.
Now nothing big has happened lately beyond the occasional walking of the steps. I will sometimes find myself talking to my new housemate when I am alone, in hopes that she stays friendly. Hopefully this was the last of the odd happenings at my humble abode. But if you are ever visiting me, and you hear or see something just not quite right, be sure to give a hearty “Hello” to the Old Lady Ghost of West End.
Maybe the following should have been told on Halloween but, I wasn’t sure if ya’ll were ready for this:
Some of you might have noticed in a previous posting that I talked about the ghost lady that lives in my house. I’m sure that you all just passed over it without giving a second thought to it. I made mention to her because…well, because she is real. I have a ghost that lives in the house with the School Girl and me. Now I know what some of you might be thinking. “Sure, I have heard the stories but I bet he is making it all up.” Let me assure you that this is not all made up.
This all started not too long after we moved into our house. That was January 2004. The School Girl and I had only been married about 4 months. I am not sure of the actual timeframe between the occurrences, but I will list them here as best as I can. Now our house is old, built in 1946 or so and I am sure that this adds to the creepiness of it all. The couple that we purchased our house from only lived there for about a year before they moved. That seems a little odd but now looking back I wonder if the Old Lady spooked them out. This couple bought the house from the family of an older woman that lived and raised her children in the house for about 25 years. My neighbor, the Old Man Next Door, says that her kids moved her to a retirement community but I’m not hearing that. Sounds like poppy-cock to me (I said…never mind). I have no proof but I have the feeling that either she or someone else died in my house.
Not long after we got everything set up and just the way we like it, strange things began to happen. The first thing can easily be brushed away with the fact that, again, we live in an old house. We would hear (and still do, of course) a lot of creaking sounds. The difference with these creaks and your everyday, run of the mill creaks is that they always sound like they are coming from the same place…the stairs up to our bedroom. Now, our bedroom is really just a converted attic with shoddy drywall, etc. Numerous times we have heard noises that sound eerily similar to footsteps. I get the impression that someone (or something) is walking up or down those steps. Obviously, we just started to ignore this.
Not too long afterwards, another interesting phenomenon began to occur. On top of a CD/DVD cabinet we kept a small mortar (of mortar and pestle fame) that was made of grey marble. Inside of this mortar we kept the boutonnière that I wore in our wedding. Every few days, as I would walk past the CD/DVD cabinet, I would notice that the boutonnière would be outside of the mortar lying directly on top of the cabinet. Now after several occurrences I directly asked The School Girl if she was doing this because it was starting to get on my nerves. To my dismay, she claimed to not have even touched the flowers. This seemed pretty odd to me.
We used to have a framed, glass fronted piece of art that sat on top of the mantle of our fireplace. Note the keyword here is “was”. Sitting in front of the picture were many knick-knacks and small decorative items. One evening The School Girl and I were in the kitchen preparing dinner when all of a sudden we heard a large crash. The cacophony emanated from the living room where our fireplace was located. To our dismay the large picture had come rushing towards the bricked hearth and the glass shattered into a myriad of different sized pieces. We wondered aloud as to what might have knocked it off of the mantle when we realized a strange scenario had come about. All of the small items that were on the mantle in front of the picture had remained in their original location. After investigating how this might have occurred, we determined that the picture could only have been lifted from where it sat to bypass the knick-knacks…but how could this have happened?
The bizarre happenings did not end here. I happen to sleep like a stone. Not much can wake me up so I was not conscious when my wife was scared out of her wits one evening. Apparently, in a dead sleep she was started straight up in bed when someone or something screamed in her ear. She claims that it was the sound of a woman’s voice that woke her and when she looked around there was nothing to be found. I pushed this off as a dream until a month or so later I had the same exact experience. Ok so now this was getting freaky, but beyond moving what was I going to do?
We pretty much just joke around about the Ghost Lady that lives with us as do our families and friends. At this point there really wasn’t any hard evidence such as seeing a ghost or seeing something floating around. If this was the end of the story, I would just chalk these up as coincidences. Of course, this wasn’t the end of our story.
On one of our side coffee tables in our living room is a Civil War chess board. The School Girl and I are avid history fans, especially the U.S. Civil War. I enjoy playing a good game once in awhile but mostly it is there for decoration. One evening when The School Girl was in class and I was all alone, I noticed that an opening move had been played from the Confederate side. I figured that my wife had decided to begin a game with me so I made a counter move. Several days passed without any mention of the moved pieces being made by either of us until about a week later. The School Girl asked me if I was playing a game of chess by myself because of the moved chess pieces. Astounded, I proceeded to tell her that I thought she had moved first so I countered and was waiting for her to play again. She had not touched any of the pieces!
I told some of my co-workers about my experiences with the Ghost Lady. Initially, KP The Don was freaked out of her gourd. The others, including Big Guy, Xantastic and Jefe all made jokes including that the Old Ghost Lady would dance with me and sit on my lap as I…sat on my throne! Yes, these people are bizarre! (sorry guys, but it is true).
Earlier this year, she made herself visible to me. Now, generally, my morning ritual includes waking up, uhh…sitting on the throne and then going for breakfast. Most mornings The School Girl would follow me downstairs while the HPIC (Head Pooch In Charge), Fandango (our white Chihuahua) would follow her to the back door to be let outside. This one particular morning as I was…throning, I saw my wife walk by the open bathroom door as Fandango followed her to the back door. When I exited the bathroom, my wife was coming through the door from upstairs and Fandango was sitting patiently at the back door. This surprised me because I thought that she was already downstairs. When I asked her about this she claimed that she was just now getting downstairs! So who did I watch walk by the door? Who did Fandango follow? Ok this was nuts! It was official in mind at this point. We lived with a ghost!
Now, most ghost stories tend to have something a little creepier than what I have shared today. Well, there is one more part to this story. A month or so ago, we had a little cookout that included friends and families. I had folding lawn chairs that I left on my side porch due to my extreme laziness. One Saturday, The School Girl was shopping at the local Wal-Mart and the sky was uneasy to say the least. Rain was imminent. The wind was whipping, tossing the tree branches around. I heard a clanking from outside on the side porch. The chairs had toppled over. I decided that the loss of these chairs (my mom’s), was not a good idea. I proceeded to put my shoes on and head out the front door, walk around to the side porch to bring my mom’s chairs in side. I walked up the steps to the porch, folded the chairs and struggled to carry them around to the front. Due to the age of our house, the front door is a little unleveled. This prevents the door from staying open on its own. I, of course, forgot to prop the door open. I struggled with the screen door as I was lugging the folded chairs into the front entryway. It was at this point that I stopped dead in my tracks. For the first time in almost three years, my front door swung all the open to allow easy entrance by myself and the chairs. I shook of my surprise, proceeded to walk through the doorway and place the chairs down on the ground. At this point, the door proceeds to shut with a hard bang. I could only stand in utter disbelief as I uttered a reluctant, “Thank you”. I didn’t want to be rude to the now Casparian ghost that obviously felt the need to assist in my struggles.
Now nothing big has happened lately beyond the occasional walking of the steps. I will sometimes find myself talking to my new housemate when I am alone, in hopes that she stays friendly. Hopefully this was the last of the odd happenings at my humble abode. But if you are ever visiting me, and you hear or see something just not quite right, be sure to give a hearty “Hello” to the Old Lady Ghost of West End.
posted by LeBlanc at 9:06 AM
1 Comments:
Im calling sitiings
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