Give up the ghost

I have a friend who thinks it's fun to assume there's a ghost inhabiting my house. As I am only the second person to own this house since it was built in 1950, and as the previous owner vacated the house due to death and not because he was relocating to a retirement community in Arizona, I suppose I can see why this friend would think a ghost roommate is likely. Not that it isn't just as entirely possible for said friend's 1980s condo to be haunted, but his condo doesn't have a creepy basement with numerous artifacts from its previous resident, so again, I see his point.

I've never really given a lot of thought as to whether I actually even believe in ghosts. I'm entirely creeped out by stories of hauntings and demons and spirits and the like, so I figure that means I must believe in them. Needless to say, I am not one of those people who thinks having a ghost in my house would be "cool." I do not appreciate the constant comments and questions and allusions to "the ghost."

The good news is, in the two years I've lived here, I've yet to see any real and convincing evidence of a ghost. Because I live alone and am probably borderline crazy, I do talk to him from time to time,* but I've never heard him answer back.

Still, whenever I feel slightly uneasy in my home alone--when I think I see a strange shape out of the corner of my eye, or when I hear an odd noise above--I wonder about the ghost. Likewise, when something seemingly unexplainable occurs, the ghost is a convenient scapegoat. This is really limited to quite minor things that normal, logical people would rationalize away immediately, but for which my overactive imagination apparently needs to find a more creative explanation. For weeks last winter I was convinced that the unexpected menthol scent I was smelling in one corner of my bedroom must be Ralph's 80-something-year-old ghost self refreshing the Icy Hot on his ailing muscles. Eventually I determined the source as the Burt's Bees travel pack of sample-sized toiletries that my friend Sarah gave me for Christmas last year. I finally discovered this, of course, not because I came to my senses and more carefully sniffed each item in the vicinity, but because I noticed that the smell shifted to the hallway when I moved the travel pack to my linen cupboard. I'm a quick study, you know.

I also blame Ralph when things go missing in my house. It's not a terribly big house, and there aren't that many unusual places I might stash things and forget about them, so I figure when I can't find something I should be able to locate, clearly Ralph must have moved it. Ralph seems to like to move shoes in particular. I think perhaps it's because he observes me from day to day and thinks of me as almost a daughter or granddaughter figure, and as such, he disapproves when I don't put my shoes in their proper place in my closet.** A year ago, when Fall came and I switched from sandals back to proper shoes, I was unable to find a pair of brown loafers that I'd had the past two years. I looked in my closet, moving all bits of clutter out of the way to search the entire floor surface area. I looked under my bed, behind the laundry basket, under the hooks in the stairwell where I hang my coats. I checked the trunk of my car and the insides of my overnight bags and suitcases. I even asked my ex-boyfriend to check his hall closet where I know his shoes all end up, thinking perhaps I'd come to his house with a change of clothes one day and left the second pair of shoes behind. I still have yet to find those shoes. My suspicion is Ralph might have hidden them in the same spot between two floor/ceiling support beams in my basement where I once found an ancient pair of ice skates he'd stashed there. I'm too scared to actually look in that spot, however, since if I do find the shoes, it will only confirm that I do, in fact, have a ghost.

I had almost forgotten about the missing loafers until earlier this summer, when a pair of black sandals went missing as well. Again, I checked all the usual places, digging behind all the random items on my closet floor where I typically kick my shoes off at night. The sandals were nowhere to be found. I started being more careful about putting my shoes away properly each night, worried that Ralph might see my treasured Birkenstocks strewn about idly in my living room and decide to teach me a lesson with those as well.

Yesterday I found the black sandals. Predictably, they were in a completely logical place that I swear I'd checked numerous times before--hanging in the shoe rack in the corner of my closet where I should properly store all my shoes but instead store only the ones I rarely if ever wear. (The loafers aren't there. I checked. Again.) So maybe Ralph is still messing with me, or maybe I really need to stop listening to my friend the amateur Ghost Buster and just accept that I'm a scattered girl with overactive paranoia tendencies and just relax already.

Incidentally, I wore the AWOL black sandals today, and I remembered that they're really not terribly comfortable or kind to my feet. If I do have a ghost, he's apparently a kind one, as he's only looking out for me (or at least, my feet), it seems.


-----------------------------------------
* Typically just when I'm feeling particularly annoyed by some attribute of the house, as in "It's very nice that you purchased new windows shortly before your death, Ralph, but they're quite shitty windows, you know. Could you not have splurged for something that glides shut smoothly each time, or that has a ventilation lock that lets more than one inch of air into my home while still protecting me from intruders?" or "Why, Ralph, why? WHY did you paint the tile? You don't paint tile, because paint wears off in time, particularly when that paint is in a shower where water flows freely each day. WHY did you paint the tile, Ralph, WHY?"

Just stuff like that, really.

** I did say I was borderline crazy, after all.