Cover design by AriOwl.
The week after my husband left was crazy. Not only was I busy with the kids - enrolling my son in first grade, finding a preschool for my three year old and arranging for babysitters - never could find a neighborhood teenager willing to come to my house-- I had a ghost keeping me up all night, what with the dragging of chains up and down the staircase and his new trick - toilet flushing.
Yes, you heard right... toilet flushing. He seemed to like nothing better than to flush the toilet in the small half bath next to the master bedroom. Only at night. All night long. I saw him do it too - watched the handle depress and the toilet flush.
As a sop to the now subdued voice of Mr. Spock, I called a plumber.
"No, Mizz Barrett, ain't nothin' wrong with this toilet. All these parts is new."
Yeah, tell me something I don't know.
Added to that the ghost began to open and close the garage door. Sure, it's possible someone else had a similar frequency. Except I drove through the entire neighborhood pressing my garage door opener and it never opened a single other garage door. When I called my husband and told him about it, he suggested maybe there was a radio tower nearby which emitted a radio frequency that opened and closed this particular garage door.
Uh-huh. In his dreams.
Nevertheless I called the garage door company. They sent a repair man. He could't find anything wrong, but he reset the frequency. It made no difference. Up. Down. Up. Down. One time I headed out to the garage to put the kids in the car and before I could press the button to open the door, the ghost pressed it for me.
I didn't appreciate the gesture and I won't apologize for that.
Apparently Mr. Ghost had a thing for newfangled highfalutin' gadgets like flush toilets and electric garage doors.
Oh, and by the way, I had a locksmith install a bolt (up high) on the door to the storeroom so I could keep it shut from the outside.
Despite the fact that I hadn't said a word to the kids about my concerns, at some point during that first week my son developed a serious fear of his bedroom. He refused to go downstairs unaccompanied, so either I went with him or we leashed the dog and he dragged her downstairs. Believe me, the dog was not a happy camper. On more than one occasion she broke containment and raced up the stairs, leaving a, um, deposit on each stair. Not like Rosie at all. Rosie was an extremely well-trained, reliable, gentle, sensible two year old golden. She was in way over her head.
As was I. And we haven't even gotten to the good part yet.
Tomorrow: My Son Breaks His Arm and The Ghost Kidnaps the Dog.
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