Posts Tagged ‘ghosts’

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Please pass the spinach

Monday, June 20th, 2011

By Tiber　

I hope you had a good Father’s Day. Ours had its ups and downs.

Since everyone’s short of gift money, Dad said we could all just sing or do a dance or a dramatic reading for him.

Mom was smart and she just dressed up like Dad’s favorite, Ann-Margret in “Viva Las Vegas,” so she didn’t have to speak at all.

The rest of us tried the singing and dancing and it was bad. The dogs didn’t just leave the room. They started packing small bags.

My brother, Kru, however, managed to come up with something that Dad really needed. In my previous post, I wrote about how we just heard on a recording what sounded like one of our ghosts saying the word “yam.”

Dad truly hates yams and he freaked.

But Kru thought there was something more on the recording. He took it to the ghost hunting team and they enhanced the audio.

And sure enough, they thought the phantom might be saying, “I am, I am,” or “I am what I am,” as if trying to announce and justify its presence. And it just sounded like “I yam” or “I yam what I yam.”

That sounded familiar to me. And, of course, I quickly figured out why.

Not only do we definitely have spirits in our house but now, clearly, we’re also being haunted by the ghost of Popeye.

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Ah, quit your yammerin’

Friday, June 17th, 2011

By Tiber

As you know, we have ghosts. Even the pros have said so.

Most of us, nervously, just try to ignore them. Dad, however, gets completely exasperated with them.

When the ghost hunting team was here, they caught an EVP (electronic voice phenomenon of a disembodied voice) that seemed to say the word “accordion.”

My father went crazy and the paranormal team said he could consider getting an exorcism. Dad said if he ever caught a ghost playing an accordion in his house, he’d consider getting a ghost hitman.

Today, the triplets were recording something and they caught an EVP of a disembodied voice that seemed to say the word, “yam.”

Clearly, this ghost has a sense of humor. It would be hard to think of two things Dad hates more than accordions and yams.

The yam part stems from an unfortunate childhood incident where an already yam-hating Dad was offered some “sweet potato pie.” Dad loves pie and he dug in as if his tongue was an industrial front loader.

No one had told him that the delightful sounding “sweet potato” was actually the same thing as the potato’s evil twin! Now even the thought of yams makes him gag.

In reincarnation, some people are doomed to get involved with the same bad spouse. But for reasons we will never understand, Dad may be condemned to share his own house forever with an accordion-playing, yam-gnawing ghost.

Karma can not only be a bitch. Karma can just be weird.

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You give me fever

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

 

By Tiber　

Doesn’t it seem as if this winter has gone on for about 18 months?

Yesterday, Brunty, my parents’ butler, went outside, looked around, saw his shadow and came right back in.  A groundhog does that and it predicts six more weeks of winter.

Would our butler be similar to a groundhog?

Let’s see. Disappearing suddenly as if into a burrow? Hibernating? Not appearing to work at a job? Check, check and check.

And the rest of us, being cooped up for such a long winter, have all got cabin fever or, in this case, country-house fever.

Anyone can get it. I guess you could get houseboat fever or igloo fever too.

With us, though, a game of indoor hockey inevitably breaks out.

The dogs play their own excellent game of snout-hockey and Mom, of course, would like it if there was no hockey. But Dad’s usually leading the charge so there’s not much she can do.

And it wouldn’t be a successful game unless we broke something.

This time, we slammed the puck (actually one of those cans of Spam that Dad can’t get anyone to eat) right into the little elevator controls.

Now, it’s gone haywire and all night long, it kept coming up and going back down all by itself.

Actually, we’re praying that it’s all by itself. The only thing worse than living in a haunted house as we do, is if your ghosts suddenly send out invitations and  all of their friends start coming over.

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If a ghost takes a shower, does he not need a towel?

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

By Tiber

I was still tired when I got up this morning and while I was brushing my teeth, I glanced over into the bathtub and saw a man’s footprint on the rubber mat inside of the tub. That woke me up. I hadn’t showered yet and no other man is using this bathroom.

I know this house is haunted and on seeing this, I completely froze.

I tried to rationalize that if you do have ghosts roaming nearby, wouldn’t it be better if they did shower? Yes!

On the other hand,  do you really want them floating in and grooming away, cleaning their feet or their chains or whatever in your bathroom? Not so much.

I just couldn’t peel away from that creepy, strange footprint.

Finally, after an interminable petrified pause, I managed to start backing out the door and, of course, then I realized it had just been my own footprint, on the fuzzy bathmat I’d been standing on, reflecting in the glass shower door.

Obviously, no ghost had left a footprint inside of my tub.

So one question had been answered but now I am left with a new one.

Does unemployment make you demented or is it that while you’re working, you’re just too busy to notice?

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There will be no dancing at the wrecking ball

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010

 

By Tiber

As you know, my sister, Iris Nell, does not cope well in the real world but she wants to bring in more money too so when one of the nearby little villages decided to do some town tours to drum up tourism, Iris Nell went over and got the job. She loves history and anything old.

The problem is, there’s not much left that‘s old or interesting in this little town so her planned “Local Architectural Jewels” segment really was more of a “They Destroyed That for This?!?”

At the new sewage plant, all Iris Nell could do was pass around a picture of the beautiful little Victorian hotel that had stood there before.

At the current “Bonanza Pete’s Dented Cans Discount Store,” she showed her group a photo of the Palladian-styled library that had been wrecking balled for it.

“It‘s such a shame,” Iris Nell lamented so a group member tried to cheer her up. “Those dented cans are a real bargain, though!“

Things picked up slightly in passing a local bar, where the tour group knew the most memorable town moment all by themselves.

“Hey, when they shot that movie here, isn’t this where that starlet got hammered and threw up on the mayor?”

Iris Nell wasn’t going to mention that bit of town lore but the group was more excited than it had been all evening so she finally nodded and pics were gleefully taken of the pavement.

She finished up her tour at the town cemetery. At least there are still old things there and the people are the same.

Our much youngest sister, Erin, who’d come along for a laugh, thought the tour was dying even here, so she grabbed a white skirt from her car and went floating around the graves in the distance. That got everyone’s riveted attention – especially when the “ghost” took a header over a marker and smashed into the ground.

There was a pause. “That ghost just fell over a tombstone. Can’t they go through things?”

Furious that she could lose her job, Iris Nell ran after the “ghost” who quickly leaped up and pirouetted off into the woods.

“My God, you’re brave!,” the group told Iris Nell. “You just chased off a ghost!” But she waved off the praise.

“I happen to know that particular ghost and though it won’t stay grounded in the graveyard, I have ways of getting it grounded somewhere else.

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Our Ghost Is Hosting

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

By Tiber

Not for remotely the first time, one of us has experienced something supernatural in this big, old house. Unfortunately, this time, that “one of us” was me.

I was making popcorn in the second floor kitchen (which we always give thanks for, since going down to the main kitchen and making popcorn will result in Cook’s popping your own head off).

So, I was happy to be in the second floor kitchen until…I heard a loud clank on the far side of the room. The metal corkscrew which I KNOW was resting on the drainboard by the sink had suddenly been launched across the room where it hit the refrigerator.

I didn’t bump it. I was nowhere near it. The house did not settle two feet. We did not have an earthquake..

As you know,  however, we’re well aware that we do have at least one ghost. We think he may have been a pirate.

Of course, with the house being in our family for so long, there’s a good chance we’re also haunted by at least one of our own ancestors.

So the question is, was the ghost just wanting some wine and a talk? Or was it trying to kill me with a pointy, metallic dart?

You’d probably say that sounded more like the pirate. But if my own family is any indicator, that could just as easily have been one of my ancestors.

Maybe the ghost was just trying to get my attention. Or maybe the ghost is hosting a party and he simply tripped and dropped the corkscrew.

Can somebody please get on with it and invent a ghost translating device?

“Look, I know you’re over there, dude, but what the hell are you trying to say?”

It’s just like playing Charades. But they’ve stuck you with the invisible team.

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Stranger In A Very Strange Land…The unknown old woman in the attic

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

By Tiber　

As some of you know, a few months ago, Mom was up on the attic floor looking for something, and what she found instead was an old woman sitting comfortably in one of the rooms, reading a book. Mom was so startled that she just excused herself and left the stranger up there.

By New Year’s Eve, no one knew if the strange woman was still up there or not but when Mom, feeling festive, left her an open bottle of wine, we half expected to hear a  hammered rendition of “Auld Lang Syne” come warbling down the back stairs. The wine was polished off but no sound has ever been heard.

Until tonight.

Iris Nell, whose room is right next to mine on the third floor, flew in here with her face chalk-white.

“I know,” I said. “I’ve been hearing it too.”

It was 3AM but somebody was doing something up there. Of course, we do have a ghost, who may be a pirate and I’ve posed the question before. Who would you rather have slithering around behind your back? A young, crazy, male pirate who’s dead or an old, crazy, female stranger who’s alive? Plus, Aunt April occasionally leaves the rooms she took over and starts wandering around too. If the three of them ever meet, it will be as if we’re hosting the “Insane Uninvitational.”

The attic noises started up again.

“Is she tap-dancing, Tiber?”

“I think she might be throwing marbles.”

“Why would she do that?!?”

“Why is she up there at all?!?”

Then we heard that old rhythm for “shave and a haircut”- “dat-da-da dat-dat…” and there was a pause. Iris Nell’s superstitions kicked in and she became frantic to tap the ceiling twice just to finish the sequence.

“No, no!” I hissed, “Don’t engage her at all!”

Finally, I had to whisper the rejoinder “dat-dat” to Iris Nell myself, just to make her stop squirming.

The noises finally calmed down and Iris Nell felt that maybe she could get some sleep. She paused, though.

“I’ll bet the old lady can’t sleep at all now. Since we’re getting into summer, it’s probably really hot up there.”

Great. Now I can’t sleep.

If the noise we heard is the old lady shooting craps with the pirate ghost, then all is well.

But if the old lady’s throwing marbles while sitting around in her underwear trying to cool off, the ghost pirate’s not going to like that at all. And before long, he’s going to start spending all of his leisure time down here, barging through my walls and scaring the hell out of me.

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The Bard of Avon Calling

Friday, June 4th, 2010

By Tiber

Whenever people find out my parents have a butler, they always say, “Oh, wow, that must be great.” Well, sometimes it is. And sometimes it isn’t.

We all love Brunty, though, and we’d miss him a lot if Dad ever let him go, just because of the entertainment value alone. And as I’ve said before, Dad wouldn’t save much money by firing him anyway since no one’s actually sure if Brunty’s ever been paid in the first place.

He can drive Dad crazy, though. This house is so big, by the time Brunty answers the door and then finally finds Dad, he can’t remember who was calling. So he just wings it. And Dad ends up having a lot of dead people announced.

Today, Brunty arrived in the billiard room and informed Dad,

“Winston Churchill to see you, sir.”

Dad sighed and went to see who was actually here.

As soon as he entered the foyer, he smelled brandy fumes. No one was there but suddenly, the heavy front door opened on its own as if someone had just left. Dad looked outside and no one was there either. There wasn’t even any wind blowing.

So, not long after, Dad started becoming obsessed that maybe it was Churchill. I thought the brandy fumes were more likely Brunty but I didn’t say anything.

Dad thinks that Brunty, since he does inhabit his own otherworldly state, may have actually seen Winston Churchill’s ghost.

“Dad, let’s be honest, why would Churchill come and visit you?”

“I know a lot about military history.”

“Yes, but where he is, he can talk to a lot of people who actually participated in World War II.”

…”Well, maybe he wanted a fresh perspective. And, dammit! I took too long to answer the door and now he‘s gone!”

“Okay, Dad…And let me preface this by saying I can’t believe we’re actually having this conversation but…isn’t it really better that Churchill’s ghost left rather than staying and roaming the halls? You know we already have a ghost here and it may be a pirate and frankly, I don’t think the two of them would have gotten along at all.”

This seemed to pacify Dad a little and by then, Brunty had tracked him down once more.

“Harry Houdini has arrived for you, sir.”

Dad headed off to the door again. My guess is, Houdini needed some help with that straitjacket of his. And out of everybody in the neighborhood, he figured Dad would be the one who’d know all about one of those.

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