living with ghosts

I spent the last week living with Justin and his girlfriend, Heather.  You'll get to meet them soon.

The first day I showed up, we spent the evening upstairs just watching TV.  When it was time for bed, I went out to my car for bags and followed Justin downstairs to my room.  

I kid you not, the moment my feet hit the bottom step, I KNEW the place was haunted.  I have experience with this stuff, you know.  The upstairs to our farm is haunted and any cousin, aunt, or uncle will back me up.

Now, I didn't say anything to Justin because, well, for being a big, tough cowboy, he's kind of a big chicken when it comes to ghosts.  So I looked at all the wall decorations to talk myself down from a panic and realized there was nothing too scary...just some decorative yokes (the thing used to hook up oxen to a plow) and antlers, neither of which should be cause for alarm.  

As Justin left my room, I looked around.  The walk-in closet was super creepy for some reason.  I investigated.  Just some old hats, maybe a prom dress and some other clothes, but the hats... The hats were sending shivers down my spine for some reason.  I shut the door to make it better.

Then I noticed the picture above the bed.  What I want to know is:  why are there always frightening pictures above the bed in haunted rooms?  Case in point: this room had a painting of a colt's face...except the eyes were evil.

I decided to open the curtains because we were in the country, which means you can still have it dark at night, but the morning light comes in.  In the window sill were some old alarm clocks.  You know, the kind with the bells on top.  And for some reason, those things really made my skin crawl.  

Finally, as I was getting ready for bed, I went to turn the basement lights off.  It had taken Justin a while to find the right light switches, because they're not exactly logically placed.  And I had to go through the same thing to get them turned off.  The interesting thing, though, is that there was a lamp on over the wood burning stove.  A plug-in lamp that had a roller switch.  And I don't remember Justin going over there to turn it on.  

Have you ever noticed how slowly you move when your hair is standing on end?  It's like if you're reeeeeeeeallly quiet, you'll be able to hear the ghost.

Well, anyhow, I got over it.  I even spent the next two evenings hanging out down there watching LOST and reading a book from Scuba Mike.  I. Was. Fine.  I wasn't creeped out at all.  

Until the second night. 

I woke up in the middle of the night and the basement light was on.  So, I got up and turned it off.  At first I assumed I had left it on, but then I realized I can't sleep with lights on.  So, then I assumed that Heather must have turned it on when she came home from working at the bar.  But why would she have come downstairs? 

I nonchalantly asked her about it the next day and without blinking an eye, she said, "No, it's just Mike."

MIKE?

In case you weren't keeping tabs on names, I was staying with Justin. And. Heather.  There was no Mike.  

Um, so who is Mike?  Rewind the memory.  Remember when you drove in and the sign said "Mike & Tink's place?"  Oh yeah.  Mike is the man who built the house.  Mike is Heather's stepfather's dad.  And it turns out that Mike was killed in a drunk driving accident a few miles down the road.  Mike has decided he still lives there, in the basement.  And Mike likes to turn lights on.  Justin had, in fact, NOT turned on that lamp above the wood-burning stove.  I asked. 

The creepy hats in the bedroom closet?  Mike's.  The clocks that never changed time?  Mike's.  And Mike's favorite places when he was alive?  The two rooms at the base of the stairway...the exact point that I knew the place was haunted.

Now, while Heather validated my gut instincts and made me feel better about my sanity, I can only wonder if it made the situation better...or worse.  I was fuh-REAKED out the rest of the time I stayed there and my ears were on supersonic hearing...as if I was going to hear Mike.  

I thought about it some and I made a deal with Mike.  I told him he could turn the lights on, as long as he turned them off when he was done, because I was too tired to be getting up in the middle of the night to do it myself.  And as I thought about it some more, I made another deal with him.  Please don't show yourself to me; I don't think I'm ready for that yet.  And he didn't.  And I didn't have to turn off any more lights.  

So I guess all I can say is this:  Mike the ghost and I lived harmoniously together, in his basement, for an entire week.