When there’s something strange in your neighborhood…

Well, I didn’t exactly call them, but I actually had the Ghostbusters at my house this week.

The local TV station film crew called and asked if they could bring the Eastern Shore Paranormal Society by my house with their pro ghost hunting equipment. Just like on Ghost Hunters! So I said sure, and then my kids yelled at me because if they didn’t find anything and it was on TV, they’d be embarrassed at school.

Is my house haunted? Well, let me share a picture with you. (click on it to see the bigger version)

This was my house last year at Halloween. I know, I’ve already written about my whole Halloween fetish and all, but look at my front steps. Notice anything… ghosty? A friend of mine is a pro photographer and she freaked out a bit when she went home and found this pic. In the whole series, photos taken right before and right after this one do not include our… um, specterly friend. (It’s not PC to say ‘dead’! He’s just LIFE CHALLENGED.)

What’s that? You don’t believe in ghosts? Really? Well you have obviously never lived in a haunted goddamn house, my skeptical reader. I had no reason to believe in them either until I SAW ONE.

Ok, gather around the campfire, readers, and pull that blanket closer around your shoulders. Wait, I mean, after you’re done eating the S’more. (I know, they’re awesome…especially if the marshmallow is perfectly browned all the way around so that like it’s marshmallow sleevey thing is coming off and it’s melting the chocolate and mmmmm.)

Marymac’s Ghost Story

Once upon a time When we moved into our 1881 house, people kept asking me if it was haunted, but I thought it was only because it looks like the Addams Family house. Then one dark and stormy night I was doing laundry in the old servants’ quarters (at the top of a small winding servant staircase that leads from my kitchen up to the present laundry room). The kids were all asleep and my husband was out of town. I felt the strong sense that someone was in the room with me. You know when one of your kids or your spouse walks into the room, and you don’t hear them but you know they’re there? Like that. I turned to see who it was, and as I was turning I saw him- for a fleeting moment, and he disappeared while he was appearing, if that makes any sense. (No, I had not been drinking, though it seemed like an excellent idea AFTER this happened). I knew why he was there- I had the sensation that I wasn’t supposed to be in there- like the lady of the house shouldn’t be in the servants’ quarters. I know, weird, but I’m just tellin it like it was. So I PUT DOWN the laundry and ran (completely freaking out) to my room. No more late-night laundry for me! Not a problem! Go ahead and finish that up for me, Mr. Ghosty!

But then the really weird thing happened. About two weeks later, my neighbor Dolly, who was born in my bedroom in 1917, came by with some old photos of the house. She flipped through them, describing who was in each picture, and when she flipped up to one, of an older African American man, I gasped. “I think he’s still here,” I said, feeling foolish but telling her what had happened. “Oh, that makes sense,” she said, “he was our butler and lived here in the room above the kitchen and took care of all of us, I can see why he’d still be protecting the house.” We’ve also heard a ton of stuff. Footsteps up and down from the 2nd to the 3rd floor are the most common (I must have gotten out of bed 20 times before I finally realized there wasn’t going to be anyone there).

So the Ghosthunter people show up and wire up the whole place with night-vision cameras (the kind that make people’s eyes look all spooky on TV) and EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) measuring thingys and the (I think it’s called) K2 meter, which has a little light show deal on it. If an ‘energy’ (they like to say ‘energy’) is in front of it, the lights ring the cherries. Um, in my house? All of their equipment rang all of the cherries. Or, stopped working from battery drain. (A common occurrence in a house with a lot of ‘energy’ because the ‘energies’ suck battery power out of their stuff.)

I was fascinated. I watched them have conversations with the ghosts in my house. They’d ask a question, and the K2 lightshow thing would ‘answer.’ I got really spooked. When they arrived at the house, the front door opened by itself for them. Now, in an old drafty hose it’s not unusual for a door to open and our front door (which my husband can’t seem to FIX!) will sort of randomly open. But when they walked up to the house, the door opened. When they spoke with the spirit, it opened again and then just as they were getting ready to leave, it opened a third and final time. I can assure you that this freaked out people who are not easily freaked. There was also a little incident where they were physically ‘pushed’ by a spirit, and the psychics got simultaneous headaches and stuff and I was all like omgggggg.

It was cool to have them here (when the kids, who’d been taken to Denny’s by my husband so their little voices wouldn’t mess up the EVP readings, got home, we all had ‘sleepovers’ because everyone was a little spooked.). Their equipment is amazing. Every one of the digital pictures they took had ‘moving orbs’ on it, and I am still waiting for the results of the camera and EVP stuff.

The thing about our life-challenged energies is that they are really friendly. Like Casper. The ghosthunters said the spirits seem very protective of my kids. Which I’m all for! Takes a village, right?! Who said the village had to be alive?!

If they would just fold the laundry, I’d be thrilled.

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In other news…. my friend Lee from CoupleDumb asked me to do a Guest Blog Post for her- it was my first one. And she asked me to write about s-e-x, which I don’t ever, ever do because I went to Catholic School and the only thing we needed to know about s-e-x was that it’s something you do after you get married. I did the best I could, though I was out of my element. Lee invited me to do her radio show last night (I’m on for like the whole second hour of the show- eek!) and it was lots of fun even though she asked me if me and my husband have phone sex. Awkkkwardddd. Anyway, Lee rocks and we have some big plans for a cool project I’ll be announcing soon here on PJ&C! Thanks for reading guys- have an awesome weekend!