2006-01-13
The Ghosts and The Pets are Winning
The animals are taking over.
I'm pretty sure that if there were hidden cameras in my house, and if the place was mic'ed properly, any biblical scholar would naturally conclude that the End is Near.
Either the god people are going to read this and be all, "Apocalypse!"; or the psychics will rad it and go, "Poltergeist, totally."
One or the other is shaking down in my crib, and I can prove it through recently disturbing goings-on with my pets.
Remember that scene from Poltergeist? The one with JoBeth Williams in the kitchen and the chair is moving across the room by itself and it's kind of cool like "Hey honey! Watch this! Electromagnetism! Cool!"
That movie terrified me and I'm only now getting to the point where I can watch it and sort of not feel like something is watching me once I turn off the TV or go home or whatever. I'm not saying I believe in poltergeist because I don't know about all that stuff, really but I will say this:
Subdivisions scare me PERMANENTLY because of that movie.
I live in Arizona, which is where it went downm you know.
Given how many times I've seen that creepy movie and the fact that I live in Arizona, I've concluded that the animals at my house are acting REALLY weird because they can see the poltergeist and I can't. Yet.
At first, the activities were funny. Windows would open. I'd wake up and the dog was in my bed... you know... "maybe-I-forgot stuff", right? I'm starting to pay closer attention and I've realized that I'm not crazy. Read on.
Tuesday, I found an open window. Normally, I would ask myself, "How did that window get opened?" then I would continue, "Huh. Weird. I know I didn't do it and there's NO WAY that Grace could have done it!" Grace is my big cat. In the winter, she�s a good 14 pounds and she�s not even overweight. She�s just big. She has been known to open a window or two on her own but there are limits, obviously, to what she can and can�t accomplish. The window that was open on Tuesday morning is one that I have never opened. I�ve never opened it because there�s no way to do so. I have old-fashioned window. In the springtime, when there are flowers and green trees over-growing in the courtyard, the windows at my hovel make me think that I live in France in 1873.
I like them. You lift the handle, push forward, and the heavy set of panes opens outward, like �Hi everyone! I�m the gate-keeper of fresh air and I�m open and I�m loving you! Hi!�
The particular window that was open does not have a handle on it.
It�s never had a handle, as long as I�ve lived there. It literally can't be opened.
Another example of paranormal activity happens each morning when I ask myself, �How did she get those underwears? I buried them under my jeans, in the hamper, on top of the chair, and rigged the whole thing with a laser-alarm system that is supposed to be triggered if any canine breath is sensed within 3 feet. How did she get around it and how many more times will I get in the shower, thinking that I have protected my delicates, only to find that Victoria doesn�t have a secret for me anymore and that at the rate I am losing panties to the puppy, I need to go get an 8-pack of bikini briefs and just feed them to her like I give her freaking rawhide.�
The basket never falls off of the chair.
The clothes that I�ve been meaning to hang up, the ones draped over the back of the chair? They�re undisturbed.
The pricey alarm system? Worthless.
This is a good time to mention that if you were to email gift certificates to Vic�s, I would write a tribute to you and make up really nice stuff about you in public. Things are getting Debbie Desperate in the top drawer of my hand-me-down, painted-ugly-blue-while-I-was-all-zoned-put-on-Zoloft-last-winter-dresser.
When I get out of the shower in the morning, the dog is miraculously chewing up yet another intimate. If she�s all content and quiet when I get out of the shower, it�s a dead-giveaway that I'm about to lean out of the bathroom and see her on my bed, eating something printed with pretty, girly flowers. When I DO find her in that compromising position, I'm in the habit of diving on her and rolling her Heeler ass to bite her chest.
And I�ll tell you why I don�t just move the underwear: It�s MORNING. I JUST woke up. I�m a little DISORIENTED. SORRY.
I think Rosie knows this; in fact, I think she knows that she can ONLY steal unders to eat in the morning because I�ll be kind of blurry and out-of-it and I will not be using my ever-developing "mama ears" to track her every doglet move. If it's afternoon, I would easily hear her getting into the laundry from 100 yards away and even if I was in the shower, I would totally bust her and roll her in a flying, dripping, left-the-shower-running way.
But the fact is that I don�t know how she�s getting to the underwear. All joking aside, the laundry basket in which I bury them under my dog park jeans is on a chair and it�s never disturbed. Rosie is a small dog � she�s not that tall, you know? She�s smart but probably not to the point where she�s like, making tools to find underwear. I doubt she is taking a hanger in her mouth and using it to hook the panties, then gently pull them trough the basketry part of the basket. Dogs don�t think like that.
The other thing that�s happening is that when I wake up in the morning, the dog is on my bed. I lock her in her crate at night. I wake up? And that weight by my right leg isn�t Grace because when I squint my eyes open just enough to verify what I thought to be true, I can plainly see that Grace is sleeping about an inch from my face and that she�s the weight cutting off the circulation in my right arm.
What the hell, man?
Today was Day Three of waking up with 3 animals in my bed instead of the two who are invited to sleep there. Who, or more likely what, is letting the dog out of her crate at some unnamed time just before dawn?
I only know that it�s around dawn because The Viking and I for sure broke up and whenever I break up with someone, even if I really want it to end, I have a sort of hard time sleeping for a little bit. I think it�s related to tossing and turning and worrying about sleeping alone for the rest of my life which�..
Given the situation with the fucking zoo in my smallish bed, sleeping alone does not look like it�s going to be an issue at any point in the near future. Hey! I should be able to sleep GREAT tonight, now that I�ve worked out the logic.
Sweet.
But back to the issue: Haints who are letting the dog out of her crate in the early hours of the mornin'. I'll 'fess up to hearing a little rattling in the morning, but nothing that would sound like what I would expect if Rosie was trying to shake the latch open on her own. And plus, do I really want to believe that Rosie knows the latch is where she needs to go to find the light of freedom?
She�s a dog, not a kid.
Finally, there�s Maggie. Not often spoken about, Maggie has freaked me out a little since the day I got her. She�s weird, okay? She�s a special kitty and not because she�s brilliant, or athletic, or even particularly friendly, but because she�s none of the above.
She�s a weird little cat and I feed her and sort of try to pet her but not very often because she thinks that burying her claws in me is a sign of affection. She�s not attacking me when she does this, mind you; the whole time, she�s purring and smiling a little TOO contentedly. She'll sweetly stretch her paw onto my shoulder, from her perch on the back of the couch and the next thing I know, hot tears of pain have sprung to my eyes and there�s a blood stain spreading across the back of my frail flannel pajama top (Mom? A little help here? Need PJs?).
I don�t bare skin around Maggie because she will pretemd like everything is fine and then sink a single claw deep into my flesh without so much as a yawn.
The weird thing about Maggie (HA! Thing? In the singular?) is that lately I�ll see her say, at the front door when I get home from work. By the time I get in and put down my bag and hang up my purse, she is in the house.
I�m talkin� about milliseconds, here, not enough time for her to get to the back and get in using the Kitty Hidey-Hole that I devised for feline comings and goings. I never see her come in or go out but somehow� she beams around the property like she�s got a couple of claws buried in Scotty.
She walks through walls.
As you can see, I am having some troubles and when you line them all up, you can see why I might suspect the paranormal, right?
I mean� magic windows?
Vaporizing kitties?
Consistently undisturbed laundry baskets?
I think I need to go so I can get on the horn with an investigator and find out why my place is filling up with ghosties who are aiding my pets in their collective goal to freak me out.
Poltergeist + Pets = 1
Sarah = 0.
arizonasarah at 1:06 p.m.