016.) Spooks Are Fun, Albeit Loud.

I work in a closet - well, that's what we call it anyway. Really, I work in an old trucking building and my "closet" must have been the foreman's office. I say this because there are two sets of doors leading in and out of the room. One set, a pair of french doors, were removed long ago to allow for the heaping shopping carts of clothes to be more easily accessible. The other door leads into a tight hallway with a secondary staircase to the break room, another door to the Doll Lady's workstation (and through that, the store corridor) and yet another door that opens to the front lawn.

No one but the Culligan Man ever uses this wooden door to that tight hallway, and even then when he comes (which is about once a month to replenish our supply of water and salt) he will on occasion go around - ergo bypassing both the metal door to outside and the wooden door to my "closet".

Now, the Culligan Man already came this month.

I'm saying all of this because while I was working yesterday I distinctly heard the wooden door to my office slam shut - with great force. Enough force, in fact, to drown out the radio and shave a few years from my life.

That door slammed closed without ever opening.

(said door which closed without ever opening)

It could have been the GM showing his son (who volunteered) around - but he did that more than an hour later. It could have been one of my coworkers but, one was at the other side of the building running the register, one was at the other building weeding and cutting hedges, one was in the warehouse - yes - but told me he'd never gone to that part of the building with the door (and why would he need to? and if he had wanted to visit me he wouldn't have gone around and back to do it). My boss was unaccounted for, but she's always nice enough to announce her presence. Two of my other coworkers were out ill, and the Doll Lady already put in her one day this week on Monday.

It could have been a customer entering the Doll Lady's office (clearly marked with a bold red sign proclaiming "EMPLOYEES ONLY" and the window obscured by curtains) to steal toys - like one man did with an entire "I found this in the hall and it's not marked" box of action figures - but certainly they wouldn't slam the door with such a passion as to announce their presence.

So, yes.

That door slammed closed without ever opening.

(Thank you, Chris. It's nice to see/hear/sense you having fun)

003.) Ghosts and Dog Crates

During my break on Tuesday 23 June, I watched two hippies (whom I have affectionately named Shaggy and Scooby) spend at least thirty minutes attempting to attach their dog carrier onto the roof of their car. Scooby did most of the work, whereas Shaggy stood by overseeing. She also repeatedly pulled up her jeans, which must have been at least two sizes too big for her tiny frame.

They were dancing with twine before I went on break, during and a good five minutes after - but eventually they went on their merry way.

I wonder how far along the highway they went before the dog crate flew off the car?




I wonder why I must be so cursed as to find myself constantly accosted by individuals from a past I'm not willing to revisit?

Let me explain: Around two O'clock on this same Tuesday as Shaggy and Scooby, as I'm walking back to the register in efforts to find something with which to dust the store, I am met with a ghost.





Nearly tripping over my own feet, I stopped and did what some of us might do when met by a specter such as he: I gaped.

I pointed and asked him a simple question, though the effort of getting that question out was not simple at all.

"Do I know you?" I asked him, this ghost and if indeed he was a ghost it perhaps was not wise of me to be talking at him. "Yes," I said, "I do know you." It was at that point when I left him, awash with a myriad of old emotions tasting of that stagnant film draping homemade pudding.

This ghost did not leave me alone, however. He bought a t-shirt and a belt I wish I had seen a lot earlier (meaning I would have prevented this geist from procuring such an item - because why would a ghost need a leather belt with an ornate metal buckle?).

When finally he did leave, I did not say good-bye (rude, yes, but I did have another customer to attend to). I dared not speak his name, for fear that be him a mere ghost his name would bring about a resurgence of his existence.