Ghosties

I was reading this post over at hola, isabel this morning and it got me to thinking about all the places I've lived and the surprising lack of paranormal experiences (I was the type of kid who read too much RL Stein before bed and then let my imagination run away with me. I should have scared myself into seeing a ghost at some point. Or aliens. Because I loved me some X-Files).

The house with greatest haunted potential would be the one I grew up in in California. It was by far the oldest of any I've lived in (unfortunately I don't even remember what decade it was built, but I'm pretty sure it was at least 50 years old). It was creaky and all, but devoid of invisible extra occupants.

The house my parents live in now is not particularly old (1980s, I think) and completely remodeled. Nothing scary there.

The house in-between the 2, though...

We moved to Arizona when I was 14. I had moved on from Goosebumps at that point, but I still read a lot of ghost stories and loved scary movies. I didn't believe in ghosts or hauntings (well, not really), but I enjoyed the stories anyway.

The house was built in the 1980s, I think, and I had a really great room with a high ceiling. One of the quirky things about my room was that directly over the door there was a sizable ledge. And on this ledge there was another smaller door that went to the attic.

We had lived in the house for less than a week when I noticed that the door was slightly ajar. I knew for a fact that it had been completely shut every time I had looked at it up to that point. I was looking at it, wondering if maybe my dad had opened it or something when, abruptly, it slammed closed.

My heart skipped a beat and I skidded out of that room and ran straight for the kitchen where other living people were hanging out. Sweet merciful frick, we had a ghost.

I don't remember if I mentioned it to anyone in my family or not. I knew there had to be another explanation but I couldn't think of one. A ghost was sharing my room with me! And randomly opening and closing the door! I wasn't sure how I would sleep at night.

It happened a couple more times over the next few days and it even started to become almost routine. I started nervously talking to the ghost from time to time. Like, "Hi, I'm Kayla. I'm really sorry I'm in your room but I have no where else to sleep and I'mnotafraidofyouanywaysothere!" And then I'd hide under my covers, positive that if I peeped my head out I would see something very unpleasant at the foot of my bed.

One afternoon, about a week after the door incident, I was home alone doing my hair in the bathroom I shared with my sister. I could see the toilet from where I was standing and it was vacant.

And then I heard the seat lift. And then I heard someone peeing.

I stared at the toilet. There was no one there.

The peeing continued. I froze.

OMG, I thought, we have a ghost that PEES!

I tore out of the bathroom, hellbent on getting out of the house. I turned the corner and ran smack into my little brother.

As it turned out, our bathroom was connected via skylight to the hall bathroom. I hadn't heard my brother come home. We had just discovered in the most pee-my-pants-in-fear way possible that if you stood in one bathroom you could hear all the intimate details of what was going on in the other.

And the door in my room? I finally figured out that it opened and closed every time the A/C kicked in. Something to do with the pressure changes, I imagine.

So I stopped talking to my ghost and I explained to my friends that they should use a different bathroom if they didn't want people hearing them pee. And that's the closest I've come to living in a haunted house.