A small number of employees were costumed today at the store. When asked where my costume was I replied, “I’m dressed as a normal person. That’s why I’m wearing underwear today.” Kinda creepy, huh? Well, it’s the time of year for creepy – why do movies like Horns get released on Halloween after all? So, I decided to write about some creepy things that have happened in life. Keep in mind none of these things have happened during Halloween. Also, I don’t remember anything creepy from beyond just a few years ago – so no creepy stories about Pennsylvania. Unless, of course, you count going to Penn State while Jerry Sandusky was still there. (Shudder!)
Over the summer I received a phone call at work from my wife in full-on frantic mode. She talked about an animal in our tub. Now I appreciate her bathing the little children on her own but that’s not very nice to refer to them as such. Just kidding. Anywho, she thought it was a mouse but couldn’t see a tail. It sounded to me like a bat; and given how high-pitched her voice was getting in describing the situation I was surprised the possible bat wasn’t going nuts as it may have been the only being capable of hearing my wife at the time. My ten-year-old thought it was dead as it wasn’t moving, but nobody stayed in the bathroom long enough to verify species or status – my wife made sure of that. So, about 5-6 hours later I came home to look. I opened the bathroom door – after removing my wife’s barricades – and looked in the shower. No varmints there. Then, as looking down produced no discoveries, I looked up. Sure enough, tucked away in the most inaccessible corner of the room was a sleeping bat. I remained pretty calm in taking down the curtains to the window (didn’t want it getting stuck in those and hurt) and opening said window in preparations for bat removal – but when the little sucker flew towards my head I was like – AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Okay, not that bad, but I did almost fall over. Sadly, it was in a weakened state and kind of flopped down onto our shower mat. All I had to do was pick up the mat and toss the bat out the window, where it latched onto our eaves and died. Poor little thing – but kinda creepy.
A few weeks ago was another creepy critter entering our house without invitation. When you have children you expect to step on lots of things – naked Barbies, stuffed animals, legos (damn, they hurt in bare feet), and any number of food particles which hit the floor. Well, when standing at the end of our dining room table during lunch I stepped on what I assumed was something which was once typically edible and heard the slight crunch underfoot. Fortunately I was wearing sneakers at the time because when I bent down to pick up what I thought was a Cheerio I saw the body of a spider. A black spider. With spindly black legs. Hmmm, I’ve seen those outside before, but never in the house. So, I picked it up in a paper towel and turned the body over. It was a little squished and hard to determine which specific kind of spider it was, but I’m 95% positive I saw the little red hour glass on the abdomen of the victim. Needless to say, the wife immediately had the kids put on shoes.
A few years back is probably my favorite creepy story. I was working with a young woman in my bakery, further training her on closing procedures. I was at one end of the bakery when she was at the front – a separation of about 15 feet. There was a shopping cart with some packaged product we were going to put on the sales floor in a few minutes. She was looked at me to listen to my directions and said she thought she saw someone walk by. I said it was probably just the store ghost. At that precise moment, the shopping cart moved from the end of the table a few feet towards our ingredient rack. At about five feet away, she was closer to the cart than I. Now, I know it’s just the contours of the floor and simple vibrations which caused it to move, but the look on her face when that happened was priceless.
That’s it for my Halloween Spirits entries. I hope you enjoyed reading and viewing the last three posts to this blog. But I have a busy day at work tomorrow and need to cut this short. But, before I retire to bed I have one more creepy experience to handle myself – changing yet another diaper!
thejasonsmind 