What with one thing and another, moving—both in budget and in planning—didn’t happen on our original schedule. This means we signed another lease (we can wiggle out of it… I think) but more importantly, we still live with the damned Meth Ghosts.
Who, by the way, have stepped up their game.
Rule 1: Ghosts lie.
ME: (on the phone) Right, so let’s just—oh for fucking out loud!
HIM: (looks up)
ME: (hangs up angrily, fires off text) Stupid screeching… it did that thing again!
HIM: What—
ME: That thing, where I’m talking and all of a sudden my phone just makes this screeching noise and I can’t hear anything?
HIM: … do you need a new phone?
ME: No, I don’t “need a new phone.” (glares)
It kept happening, at odd intervals, but it wasn’t until I was traveling to Colorado frequently that I noticed the pattern…
HIM: Everybody’s being good. Ham misses you but—HELLO? HELLO!
ME: Hi? What—
HIM: I CAN’T HEAR YOU! IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, CALL ME BACK! (hangs up)
ME: What the… (calls back)
HIM: Hey, what was that?
ME: I don’t know. You suddenly started shouting that you couldn’t hear me.
HIM: My phone started screeching at me—
ME: Oh, now your phone does it? (refrains from making “need a new phone joke, because he totally does)
HIM: This was the first time. What—
ME: That’s interesting. Because it hasn’t happened to me since I’ve been away.
HIM: Huh. Well anyway—
ME: And you know what else? It only ever happens to me inside the house.
HIM: …
ME: Yeah.
HIM: So what, you think it’s the Meth Ghosts?
ME: If you have another explanation…
HIM: (sighs) So why would they do it to my phone?
ME: (grumbles) Asshole.
Yeah, interfering with our phone calls is a new low. I was particularly unimpressed when they did it while I was on with the funeral home—the funeral director, by the way, thinks I’m crazy rather than haunted. I sort of don’t care, since I’m never going to see her or speak with her again, but it did handicap my argument that Kenny had no right to be making decisions for “the family.”
Husband, of course, insists that the phone thing is “an interesting coincidence of technology and architecture,” and not obvious evidence of paranormal retribution for the door thing.
Oh riiiiight… I haven’t told you about the door thing! Remember how the Meth Ghosts seem to mostly enjoy the second smallest bedroom, and since that’s the one we use for storage we just sort of… let them keep it? Well they must be living their best afterlives in there or something, because sometimes you can’t get in right away—like they’re naked or whatever and need a moment to pull themselves together, you know? So you have to knock, wait a moment, and try again. It doesn’t always work—you might have to go away and try again in fifteen or so—but usually you can get in after a polite pause. The knock-and-immediately-enter does not work; you will find the door practically welded shut, whereas if you wait a few seconds it will open as easily as any other door in the house.
Husband, who neither decorates for holidays nor obsessively tries on old clothes to see if they fit now that he lost three and a quarter pounds, has very little occasion to enter this room and always mocked my hallway arguments with the Meth Ghosts. (“Come on, I don’t have time for this! Look, I was nice about it before but I did say I was going to be in and out today and I need to get in now! My arms are full, dammit!”)
Until.
HIM: So I went to go charge the batteries (gestures at storage room) after I did the front lawn…
ME: Uh-huh?
HIM: And the door wouldn’t open.
ME: (smug) Did you do the thing?
HIM: I did the thing.
ME: You knocked politely, waited a moment, then tried again?
HIM: And it worked.
ME: So now you believe me.
HIM: I just said I did the thing—
ME: You know, other people hear that—that we’ve got a door that sometimes won’t open and you have to knock and wait, or ask nicely to be let in—and they get all freaked out and tell us to get the fuck out of this house.
HIM: (laughs)
ME: And you just laugh at it!
HIM: You know I don’t believe in that stuff!
ME: But you did the thing.
HIM: I did the thing.
ME: And it worked.
HIM: They painted these doors weird—
ME: You think the paint sometimes won’t let you in?
HIM: I think it gets stuck sometimes—
ME: And will only open if you knock and wait?
HIM: Maybe the gentle vibration—
ME: And how ‘bout the times even that doesn’t work? Or the times I have to call out? Or all the other weird-ass things that have happened?
HIM: I’m just… I don’t know. But I don’t believe—
ME: You’re going to get me murdered by meth ghosts, talking like that right in front of their door.
I totally want to come for dinner at your meth ghost infested house before you move. That shit is golden!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Husband will make curry.
LikeLike
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just slam into the door until it opens. Then again maybe that’s why they’re getting crankier…
LikeLike
Lol, they don’t seem to bad though I am just now learning about the Meth Ghosts. My friend K bought a $35,000 fixer upper about 20 years ago. Big old Victorian house that was a middle class type place then became a boarding house for a bit. It’s been heavily modernized- no more two way fireplace in the kitchen and while most of the walls are horse hair plaster, there is more and more drywall appearing. Anyway, she has 4 or 5 ghosts? When she moved in and told everyone the house she was working on they would say “oh the little haunted house on the corner?” And that happened one to many times to be a joke! They find wheat pennies all over the place whenever there is a big disturbance (like a ghostly, “sorry we partied hard,” gift) they make photo copies, they play with her son’s train set, and when the eldest had a sleepover last year one of the ghosts was rushing down the hall in a pink satin gown. The girl wondered if it was a friend but they never came back and then she realized none of her friends were wearing night gowns, but pants and tops! The one that most reminds me of your issue though, which the phone, is the back bedroom is weird as crap. You just don’t want to turn you back completely to the room. There is a closet in the room that was sealed. There’s this law that bedrooms are define by closets and that makes the property taxes more because of the bedroom count. Anyway they unsealed it and all this stuff from the 40’s was in there including a picture of a man in a gray suit. Well that man describes to a T by her young son likes to sit on his bed at night, watching him sleep and playing with those trains. Well last summer the young boy went to summer camp fro two weeks. About halfway through the week, she wakes up at 3AM to her phone playing music as LOUD as it could. It was strange but she stopped it. Went back to bed and didn’t think to hard on it. But then it happed for the next 4 nights. She calls me up, because I am into computers more so than she, and she asks me about hackers. We go down this rabbit hole and I have her change all her passwords and put numbers in and all that and finally, I ask, “What sort of songs are played?” Because I have a bunch. Well they are all songs from her son’s playlist that’s shared with the family. I encouraged her to do all the things I said and just kinda told her, “well maybe he missies L. You should let him know he is coming home, and when.” Now it
Could have been the router password changes and the Apple account password changes but the playlist did not play again while L was gone.
So there’s that 😉 I’ve also see one fellow from the upper chest up. He’s not a bad looking fellow but I’ve never broken out into full body goosebumps that fast before!
Oh! And her husband doesn’t believe her either!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Sorry about all the typos… on my phone!
LikeLike
See, you think you told a creepy story about worse ghosts than mine but all I heard was, “my friend has ghosts that GIVE HER MONEY.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
I do t think they are worse, she doesn’t call her’s the “meth ghosts” and there must be a reason WHY they are called such things! (I am kind of afraid of the answer) but yeah, she has a jar full of those pennies, so you are right at least her ghosts pay rent 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Although, come to think of it, yours are more polite but you’re right, hers still pay her… lol
LikeLike
I want to come visit your house. We don’t have any kind of ghosts… just a toilet that howls despite being “fixed” like 7 times, I gave up on calling plumbers and just let it howl
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bet that toilet is haunted AF.
LikeLike
If it is I feel bad for that ghost, I’ve been in the bathroom after my boyfriend, it’s not pretty lol
LikeLiked by 1 person
Did the Meth Ghosts have to co-sign the new lease or are you hoping that the “no ghosts” clause will be the way out of it?
LikeLiked by 1 person
We don’t actually have a “no ghosts” clause – I just checked. There’s still the thing in there that says this house is located in KC and has a fireplace, though… IANAL but “not even in the city they promised” seems like sufficient grounds to break a lease.
LikeLiked by 1 person
‘Living their best afterlifes’. Ha! Wonder what they’re trying to hide when they need a bit of time before they let you in.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I spend a lot of time and brainspace not thinking about that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here’s the thing. I don’t really believe in ghosts. But I love weird ghost crap anyway. And I love your meth ghosts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You should come visit them! You could stand there Actively Disbelieving while they throw knives (to be fair, it was only the once) and they’ll be so intrigued by your tales of dropbears and hoop snakes and brothels,* they’ll follow you home!
*I am fascinated by your brothels. They’re on my bucket list. So many questions, mostly about yoga pants and pizza deliveries.
LikeLike
OK, I live in Australia too, and even I don’t know about the yoga pants and pizza deliveries. 😮
I do know about the giant killer wombats though…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Clearly I need to interview some brothel workers.
LikeLike
I’ll stand there Actively Disbelieving, but also telling them they’re cool and complimenting their knife-throwing.
Our brothels are interesting? I actually didn’t know that. I’ll have to pay more attention.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’d love to know the history of your house and that room. It might be something far more interesting than meth ghosts. Maybe leprechauns and pots of gold?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not in this neighborhood.
LikeLike
That’s sad. I think it’s much a much nicer idea.
LikeLiked by 1 person