Wrinkles in the Wainscoting

When I bought my house a few years back, I moved in with the expectant anticipation of converting the domicile into our dream home, just the sort of self-contained paradise that mature Americans shape in hopes of someday morphing into a life of dignified retirement.

Nothing could have prepared me for the secret the dwelling harbors—it is haunted. Now, I know what you’re thinking, Bob has flipped his trolley. Honestly, at first I might have agreed with you. Throughout my life, I have practiced a form of pragmatism that tends to discard outlandish reports of anything that couldn’t be proven scientifically.

Be that as it may, we have a ghost, a spirit, a spooky wraith. And if that isn’t bad enough, he’s one of the most boring individuals I’ve ever encountered. He doesn’t really do very much; once in a while we come home to find the dog’s dish turned upside down or junk mail spread out all over the dining room table or the refrigerator door slightly ajar.

Recently, I found out that he rips coupons out of the stack of old newspapers we keep stacked in the basement. I went downstairs to check the furnace filter and found coupons for mushroom soup and air freshener lying on top of the water heater. Every single one of the coupons had expired, so either he can’t read the fine print or he has no concept of time. Just once I’d like to go down there and find that he’d selected a coupon for a quart of Johnny Walker or a two-for-one advertisement for Trojan condoms.

We first knew that we had a haunt last winter when we couldn’t keep the temperature in the house above 64 degrees Fahrenheit. We’d set the thermostat for 72 and come back an hour later, after feeling a chill, and find the dial back on 64. After this went on five or six times, we just left it and my wife started wearing a heavy sweater or coat inside the house. I’m as green as the next guy, but 64? In January?

Convinced that we were losing our minds, we decided to hold a séance. We bought a Ouija board at the Dollar Store and lit some candles on the dining room table one evening. Spooky as hell… the dog wouldn’t even come into the room. We’d been advised to ask yes or no questions, so we constructed all our inquiries in that fashion, but invariably, when we made contact he’d blather on and on about the declining quality of the lunch buffet at Golden Dragon or the virtue of paper rather than plastic or how kids don’t really need recess. After twenty minutes or so, I think he lost interest because he stopped answering our questions. In the den we heard the TV come on and the channel change to The Food Network, with Chef Emeril Lagasse detailing his latest culinary creation, Butter Bean Ragoût.

I wish that just once he’d leave us a cryptic message on a steamed-up bathroom mirror or offer up a plaintive moan capable of scaring the bejesus out of the kids during Halloween trick-or-treat activities. Instead, we get an improperly recoiled garden hose or the cap being left off the toothpaste or my hand tools taken off their hooks in the garage and strewn on my workshop countertop.

It’s embarrassing, really… I haven’t even called a psychic for help. I’m afraid any self-respecting parapsychologist would laugh at us.

So, up until now, I’ve just kept my trap shut about him. Do me a favor and keep this to yourself, if you don’t mind. I wouldn’t want anyone to think me strange.