Among others, because I have many, I told my story about having ball lightning enter my living room and explode on the wall, leaving the blinds banging against the closed window. (I seem to have a knack for attracting the rare.) While it’s not the paranormal per say, I still think it’s pretty freaking cool that I’m one of the rare people who has witnessed it.

I also shared one of my friend’s stories (the same friend who argues with me about the Orioles!), in which he and his wife, on different occasions, independently saw, a female ghost in a full length dress. Both times she appeared, she seemed to be waiting for someone. She stared out the window, turned and stared at at my friend, then turned and stared again out the window and then disappeared. I believe my friend, but I can’t make sense of a clothed ghost. What’s the purpose of clothes on a ghost?

Ever since he shared that story, I feel an especial onus to make sure that I’m well-attired every day. What if I die in sweats for example? Who wants to go through eternity under-dressed? I hate to think what my hair might look like. It’s bad enough every day now. Perhaps there’s lower humidity on the other side? This whole clothed ghost thing has been a burden to me and the clothes pole that must bear such an enormous amount of weight. A burden, I tell you!

At any rate, last night ended with mutual agreement that either way, we couldn’t say whether the paranormal exists. Despite the incessant doorbell ringing by Wild Bill Hagy last summer, we like to tell ourselves that there was a rational explanation for the electrical malfunction.

Perhaps to prove a point, someone turned on the television in our loft this morning. The television was turned on at some point during ten minutes that my husband spent downstairs. On his way back to the office, he paused at the top of the steps and turned to me, “Did you turn on the tv?” “No, I’ve been here the whole time.” I replied unnecessarily, because he knew I hadn’t left the living room yet. We proceeded to question each other, trying to extract a confession from the other about the practical joke. Then we turned our attention on blaming the cat until we realized that she was already outside. There we stood with crestfallen faces, puzzling over how the television turned itself on. The remotes were still aligned at a precise 45 degree angle along the top of the television (I admit, we’re kind of anal people, and by “we,” I mean “me”), so even if the lazy fat cat had managed to jump to the top of the tv, surely she would have moved the remotes or knocked them off the television, the way she does with every other object left on a surface she skates across.

To my knowledge there have been no solar flares in Charlotte and none of our other appliances magically turned on. Not even the little stereo that’s plugged into the same power strip.

The television isn’t hooked up to the cable so there was only static. I’m not sure if we were supposed to hear a message from the static or if the ghost was just hoping to catch a little tennis or Orioles. Is it fair to ask that if I have to have a ghost, why can’t I have one who helps with the laundry or dishes, or whispers lotto numbers to me?

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