Spookiness
Tomorrow's the day. I'll go to sleep and wake up missing a few teeth, although "missing" might be too generous a word. I'm putting up a brave front for my parents, since I know they'll be worrying anyway. Still, this is the first time I've had surgery since I had tubes put in my ears, and I was too young to remember that. In a sense, this is my first time. No matter how hard I try to intellectualize the fear away (better than the alternative / people do it all the time / at least it'll be over with), I'm nervous. I think it'll be like having my ears pierced or my blood drawn. Anticipation is the worst part, since no matter how much people may tell me what it'll be like, I won't understand the level of pain involved until I’m experiencing it. The uncertainty is a pain of its own. In that respect, I'm paradoxically looking forward to going under. Then I won't have to think about it anymore. Luckily, with the codeine, I won't think much at all.
Since misery likes company, I will now relate a scary story that my parents swear up and down is true. For my part, I can confirm the vast majority is factual, but as for the events I wasn't able to witness first-hand, you'll just have to take my parent’s word for it:
My mother is a serial house-builder. We'll move into a house, and she'll find some problem with it that she absolutely cannot live with. She'll talk my dad into selling the house and building a new one. Then she'll find something wrong with that house: Lather, rinse, repeat. You get the idea.
So, we’ve moved into a new house, and we hope to god it’s the last one. It's in the middle of nowhere, on a heavily wooded lot, far away from the riff raff. Apparently the problem with all those other neighborhoods was all the pesky neighbors. But no matter. My parents immediately set about making friends with the other people scattered in our small community. They hit it off with one couple in particular, Ken Potter and his fiancée. Potter was a self-made millionaire who ran a couple of businesses in the area, including a motorcycle dealership. His house--or estate, rather--was by far the largest in the neighborhood. The place had horses, I kid you not. Ken, according to my parents, was a spiffy guy. He and Dad shared some scotch and the four of them talked at length one evening.
Three weeks later Ken died in his sleep. He was in his forties.
His family sold the house. The fiancée got virtually nothing. The results of Ken's autopsy were never released to the public.
The death hit my parents pretty hard. They're not much older than Ken was, and Ken was in much better shape. The guy worked out, ate healthy, and jumped through all the hoops doctors tell you to. The death had a sobering effect on socializing for a while.
Then, about a month ago, my parents invited Ken Potter's best friends, the Belcher's, over for a BBQ. I couldn't come down that weekend for one reason or another, although in retrospect, I should have found the time. My parents did the party up right. According to Mom, they went through no less than four bottles of wine between them, which more or less made up for the uncharacteristically bad BBQ.
The following morning Mom stumbled out of bed to find that something was wrong with the living room furniture. The cushion to one of her nice decorative chairs was on the floor. Four bottles of wine or not, they hadn't gone around rearranging furniture. Nothing else was out of place, so she replaced the cushion and thought no more of it.
Later that day, Dad called Mom into the living room. A puddle of water surrounded the chair, while water dripped in a steady stream from the chair’s bottom. There was no leaking pipe beneath or above. Apart from Mom replacing the cushion, no one had touched the chair either that day or the day before. Furthermore, the chair's cushion was not wet. The water seemed to have simply appeared, without explanation or an apparent source.
My parents hopped in their car, drove to the Belcher's place, and relayed the story. The Belcher's were naturally as mystified as my parents, until one of them jokingly said, "It was probably Ken peeing on the couch. You know how he loved to pull pranks."
I really wish they hadn't said that. Once the idea was planted, it flourished in my mom's imagination like it was on Miracle Gro. She is firmly convinced the house is haunted by the ghost of our dead neighbor. Kathy Belcher didn't help much. She asked one of her clients, who apparently is into the occult. The client suggested the water was Ken Potter's tears of happiness that the Belchers and my parents were moving on with their lives. Naturally.
Personally, I think they're all smoking crack. If I was Ken Potter, I'd be haunting my gorram family for leaving my fiancée out in the cold, not the neighbors I had drinks with one night. Furthermore, if I was going to leave a message from the other side, I wouldn't do it by peeing on a chair. I'd also like to add that despite all evidence that it’s a hoax and the flat-out admission from the guilty parties, my mother still firmly believes that the Amityville Horror is based on events that really happened, pesky things like evidence be damned.
But in the interest of fair and balanced reporting, I don't have a "rational" explanation for the chair and that was the same chair Ken Potter sat in the night he had drinks with my parents.
If Mom uses this as an excuse to move again, I’ll kill her.
Since misery likes company, I will now relate a scary story that my parents swear up and down is true. For my part, I can confirm the vast majority is factual, but as for the events I wasn't able to witness first-hand, you'll just have to take my parent’s word for it:
My mother is a serial house-builder. We'll move into a house, and she'll find some problem with it that she absolutely cannot live with. She'll talk my dad into selling the house and building a new one. Then she'll find something wrong with that house: Lather, rinse, repeat. You get the idea.
So, we’ve moved into a new house, and we hope to god it’s the last one. It's in the middle of nowhere, on a heavily wooded lot, far away from the riff raff. Apparently the problem with all those other neighborhoods was all the pesky neighbors. But no matter. My parents immediately set about making friends with the other people scattered in our small community. They hit it off with one couple in particular, Ken Potter and his fiancée. Potter was a self-made millionaire who ran a couple of businesses in the area, including a motorcycle dealership. His house--or estate, rather--was by far the largest in the neighborhood. The place had horses, I kid you not. Ken, according to my parents, was a spiffy guy. He and Dad shared some scotch and the four of them talked at length one evening.
Three weeks later Ken died in his sleep. He was in his forties.
His family sold the house. The fiancée got virtually nothing. The results of Ken's autopsy were never released to the public.
The death hit my parents pretty hard. They're not much older than Ken was, and Ken was in much better shape. The guy worked out, ate healthy, and jumped through all the hoops doctors tell you to. The death had a sobering effect on socializing for a while.
Then, about a month ago, my parents invited Ken Potter's best friends, the Belcher's, over for a BBQ. I couldn't come down that weekend for one reason or another, although in retrospect, I should have found the time. My parents did the party up right. According to Mom, they went through no less than four bottles of wine between them, which more or less made up for the uncharacteristically bad BBQ.
The following morning Mom stumbled out of bed to find that something was wrong with the living room furniture. The cushion to one of her nice decorative chairs was on the floor. Four bottles of wine or not, they hadn't gone around rearranging furniture. Nothing else was out of place, so she replaced the cushion and thought no more of it.
Later that day, Dad called Mom into the living room. A puddle of water surrounded the chair, while water dripped in a steady stream from the chair’s bottom. There was no leaking pipe beneath or above. Apart from Mom replacing the cushion, no one had touched the chair either that day or the day before. Furthermore, the chair's cushion was not wet. The water seemed to have simply appeared, without explanation or an apparent source.
My parents hopped in their car, drove to the Belcher's place, and relayed the story. The Belcher's were naturally as mystified as my parents, until one of them jokingly said, "It was probably Ken peeing on the couch. You know how he loved to pull pranks."
I really wish they hadn't said that. Once the idea was planted, it flourished in my mom's imagination like it was on Miracle Gro. She is firmly convinced the house is haunted by the ghost of our dead neighbor. Kathy Belcher didn't help much. She asked one of her clients, who apparently is into the occult. The client suggested the water was Ken Potter's tears of happiness that the Belchers and my parents were moving on with their lives. Naturally.
Personally, I think they're all smoking crack. If I was Ken Potter, I'd be haunting my gorram family for leaving my fiancée out in the cold, not the neighbors I had drinks with one night. Furthermore, if I was going to leave a message from the other side, I wouldn't do it by peeing on a chair. I'd also like to add that despite all evidence that it’s a hoax and the flat-out admission from the guilty parties, my mother still firmly believes that the Amityville Horror is based on events that really happened, pesky things like evidence be damned.
But in the interest of fair and balanced reporting, I don't have a "rational" explanation for the chair and that was the same chair Ken Potter sat in the night he had drinks with my parents.
If Mom uses this as an excuse to move again, I’ll kill her.