Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Would YOU Come A-Dumpin' If This Room Was A-Thumpin'?

Things unknown have been pretty calm here lately, since the Christmas holiday and CasinoPalooza 3. However...they ramped up again a couple weeks ago.

Not every night, but more often than not, I've been hearing things upstairs. It's generally around 1:30 to 2:00. Not exactly footsteps this time, or someone turning over in Genius's bed. Heavy thumps. One a night. Not every night. A couple of times, it came from the boys' bathroom. That area is directly over my head as I sit in my OPC (Old People Chair). It's hard to pretend this one is just the ductwork popping when the furnace kicks on or off. Because it's a single thump. More of a clang. Like a metal foot locker dropping into a cast-iron bathtub. Which we don't have in there. It's fiberglass.

I've also heard a couple of thumps in The Pony's room. It's carpeted. And so the thump is muffled. Like maybe if a toddler jumped off a bed, or somebody dropped a cast-iron cookpot that cowboys hang over a campfire full of beans. We don't have a toddler or a cookpot. There's also been a couple of thumps in Genius's room. The same sound. On different nights. There's not a pattern, except I heard the bathroom sound three nights in a row.

There has been some walking in the kitchen, but Hick only admitted to going in there one night, for a drink, since he had a cold.

Wednesday night, when I went upstairs to bed around 3:30 a.m., I went to the hall closet that's by the boys' bedrooms and bathroom, to get a roll of toilet paper. I felt kind of self-conscious after hearing stuff in this area lately. Not the kind of feeling like your hair is standing on end, like something is fixing to happen. This was just a general sense of unease. I told myself (not out loud) that I was being stupid. I figured I'd fetch that roll of toilet paper, and get to my end of the house.

I SWEAR I HEARD SOMETHING SCURRY IN GENIUS'S ROOM!

Like somebody hustling from the middle of the room, or behind the door, over to the bed. I didn't hear the bed creak, though. That might have caused me a mental breakdown! Weird, hearing something in there while I was right outside, and not all the way downstairs.

Let the record show that we keep the doors to the boys' rooms closed. No reason, really. I don't think it saves on our heating bill. They've both cleaned most of their stuff out, so the rooms aren't really an eyesore. And besides, we rarely have visitors. Of the human kind.

Thursday evening, I went out to bring the dumpster back down the driveway. I took my CPO jacket off the post of the wooden rail that runs around the rectangular opening where the steps lead down to the basement. It runs from that hall closet, makes a 90 degree turn, and runs to the front door area. There's a wood box there where the boys kept their play shoes. I hang jackets and coats on the corner post at the 90 degree angle.

When I came in from retrieving the dumpster, and went to hang my CPO jacket back on that post, I saw that my purple heavy Berber coat with a hood, that I'd used for bus duty days at school, to patrol the parking lot, had fallen to the floor. Weird. I'm sure the coat just fell because it was unbalanced. But it HAD been hanging there since I retired a year and a half ago, and we cleaned out the back of T-Hoe. Yes, I'm sure it was just a coincidence. I probably jostled it while getting my CPO jacket off the post. My heather sage green baseball-style jacket was hanging on the rail in between them, though. And only the purple heavy Berber coat with a hood had fallen. They weren't even touching.

I looked at that purple heavy Berber coat with a hood, laying there on the floor. And then at the heather sage green baseball-style jacket still hanging over the rail. I snatched up that purple heavy Berber coat with a hood and took it straight to Genius's room and tossed it on the bed, then hurried out and closed the door.

TAKE THAT!

...was the thought in my mind.

I didn't dare say it out loud.

15 comments:

  1. Haints! Ye got haints, by cracky!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a wonder I don't have the faints, as startling as these noises are sometimes.

      Delete
  2. I would be doing that "Feets don't leave me now" thing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't run away, but I definitely don't go to investigate!

      Delete
  3. This is spooky. I think you should set up some nanny cams in those rooms. Or maybe some large rat traps.
    "a campfire full of beans"?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Technically, a cast-iron cookpot full of beans, hanging over a campfire. I can't be bothered to make sense when I'm in the writing flow.

      Maybe I could put the game camera in there. The one we caught the cat-pooper with!

      Delete
    2. I forgot about your game camera, that's a good idea.

      Delete
  4. Sounds like you have a visitor in your house, that coat on the floor was their way of telling you that you should put that coat away, I mean it's only been hanging there a year and a half, don't you hate it when visitors from the spirit world start getting bossy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, yeah...it's ONLY been hanging there a year and a half! I don't see the rush to do chores, now that I'm retired. The spirit world is not helping. That coat was neatly draped over the rail, NOT piled on the floor like I found it when I came in.

      Delete
  5. My friend found broken glass in her bed and an old doll's head turned around backwards.

    I heard a loud boom-boom-boom in the middle of the night. Woke the mister, and he opened the basement door to see something had fallen off a shelf and bounced down three steps, boom-boom-boom. What a relief. MOST of the goings on in our house cannot be explained. You must go in ans check out the coats and report back to us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yikes! That broken glass and reverse doll head would probably make me pack up and move. At least my manifestations have not seemed threatening.

      When Genius still lived at home, we were sitting in the living room and heard a THUMP from his room. We both went to look and it was a flat box that fell off his top closet shelf. Let the record show that he has no door on his long closet. (You know how kids have a way of messing up those folding doors.)

      It was a box of decal thingies like you can use to design a house interior. Shaped like a board game box. According to Genius, it had been in the middle of a stack of games, but was the only one that fell.

      I have no plans to check on the coats! I took some mail belonging to Genius in there one evening, and the floor by the door creaked while I was standing by his desk. Like something was blocking my way out!

      Delete
    2. "A box of decal thingies like you can use to design a house interior"
      I didn't know such a thing existed. I Love playing around with house interior designs. I'd like more detail on this item, brand of product and picture of box perhaps?

      Delete
    3. This isn't the exact one, but it was something like this:

      https://www.architectgiftsplus.com/products/home-quick-planner-be-your-own-interior-designer

      Delete
  6. I like River's idea. Get that camera rolling! In my younger days, I would have wanted to move, but, now that I am aging, I am harder to scare. My daughters scare me, but they are mean. They know how to push my buttons, then turn it all around to make me the bad guy. They tag team me and it makes my son so upset. He is the family peace maker. He really is my favorite child! My last trip north may well be my very last trip north.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I WANT to set up a camera to see what's going on at night. But I'm AFRAID to see what's going on at night! Either something supernatural is making those noises...or I'm the only one hearing those noises! Not sure which discovery would be more frightening.

      When those daughters need something...you will cease being the bad guy. Temporarily, anyway.

      We went through that with Genius for a couple of years. Then he was instrumental in getting me my OPC (Old People Chair) a couple Christmases ago. He's probably just waiting for me to die, and trying to hasten the aging process.

      Delete