Living in a house that was built 130 years ago, I guess it figures that the ghosts would start to emerge at some point.
The nice old lady at the laundry yesterday, strangely about my age based on my mastery of the great sidereal mechanism by which time is reckoned, mentioned that her sixth grade teacher lived in this house and raised her kids in the space where I'm now writing this. That would've been the fourth or fifth group of kids to roam through these spaces.
We have expected nocturnal visitors at some point. The other night we watched Disney's Haunted Mansion on Amazon Prime, a truly execrable waste of 90 minutes that didn't summon anyone from the other side because no one who's forded the River Styx would show up to set the mood for Eddie Murphy to look shocked at the hijinks of a butler named "Ramesly" (you'd have to see the movie, I guess. Or better yet save it for year 8000 or so of your time in eternity. I'm sure it'll still be on Amazon for $2.99).
The first week we were here a floor lamp in the living room fell over during the night, but I am pretty sure that was the result of the whole arrangement being out of balance.
Then the washing machine died its spooky death.
One dark and stormy night, the washing machine filled with water and refused to enter its spin cycle, as if possessed by a malignant laundry demon. The door locked shut, keeping us from rescuing our underpants and washrags, looking back at us forlornly through the glass, half immersed in soapy water.
A trip through YouTube arrived at a video on how to unlock the door of this Swedish monstrosity, an Asko model 6820. We dropped a panel, located a red pull tab that was reminiscent of the beer tab on a can of Falstaff in 1978, and yanked to release the door and a dribble of water from the rescued clothes. Success.
Then it got weird.
The next morning I was reading the Corning newspaper on the throne next to the washer (I'm told women don't do this, so please don't consider me vulgar for reading the paper on the toilet), when the Asko started making noises suggesting a rattling rotation in a metal space, as if it were trying to come back to life. I figured it was a rat--after all, this is a very old building. And yet, I didn't see any evidence of rodents, and the damn thing quit rattling once I left the room.
Then P got up at 3 am to take her pills and, well, read the paper just as I'd done eleven hours before, and the same thing happened. A rattling laundry poltergeist had taken up refuge in our washing machine.
I found myself wishing I had not hung up my collar and stole, because this moment would have otherwise called for breaking out the aspergillum and dousing our ghostly visitor with holy water and whatever mumbo-jumbo I could utter with the full authority of the one holy and apostolic church. I contemplated eating less fiber, lest I encounter the washer rattling demon in the wee hours while scrolling through Facebook on the toilet.
It would be great to tell you we've resolved this haunting, but alas it is still with us. The little bastard is quiet as a mouse as I type this at six on a Saturday night, but I know full well the tortured soul of some departed resident of this place is going to start rattling the water lines and groaning for more bleach as I sit there in the middle of the night reading my evening news feed and swearing off chicken wings.
Maybe it's time to find another aspergillum on ebay. Just don't tell the bishop.
Comments