Monday, April 17, 2006

Evil Spirits and What it Takes to Leave

Anyone who knows me knows that I have an abnormal fascination with all things paranormal. I have often thought how cool it would be to live in a haunted house - that's after the initial wet the floor, shit my pants thing wore off.

I watch all of those Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, etc. channel shows about hauntings and ghosts and the experiences of others. I have never actually had a paranormal experience - to my knowledge - although I do read tarot cards. But that's rather innocuous by comparison.

weird Travels is a wonderful program. Any of the specials on various haunted places is wonderful, the countdowns of various haunted places are great. What is not great - that horrible show on Travel (I think) called Haunted something or other. You know the program - the very proper English people with all their fancy pants paranormal equipment and their flamboyant clairvoyant (he should have that printed on a t-shirt). It is a horrible little program that adds nothing to the study of paranormal activities. It is just crap. And not suspenseful.

Today I was eating lunch and flipping through the stations when I came upon The Haunting on the Discovery Channel. Now most shows that I watch or stories that I read related to hauntings deal with melancholy spirits or mischievous spirits - not evil spirits. This program focused on evil. Pure evil spirits haunting these homes preventing the residents from getting a good night's sleep. Bastard spirits.

I mention it because while I would love to be in a haunted house, I want haunted-lite. I don't want the full blown evil spirit scaring the bejesus out of me. I want to discover some deep dark secret that makes Ghost Mary want to stay in my house. Perhaps her husband died during the war and she lives on waiting for his return because he built the house for her brick by brick that he personally crafted from local stuff you make bricks out of.

I am also often reminded of a comedian (it may be Chris Rock) who mentions how dumb white people are. Amityville was his example. He said, if I have a house telling me to get out, I'm getting out. You don't have to tell me twice. White people, they say, hmmm, let's stay.

That said, this family was living in this beautiful home. They started hearing noises almost right away. The woman was there with her daughter and her new husband. She got pregnant. They start hearing voices and seeing things and what-not. The husband happens to have a friend who studies paranormal phenomenon and he has a friend who is clairvoyant. Convenient. They are so interested in finding out why the house is haunted and why it is evil that they lose reason. The woman is no better. Her husband keeps convincing her to stay.

This is where I say to dumb women everywhere - your man is sometimes a moron. Sometimes they don't know what is best - for them or you. Hell, they scratch themselves and laugh at farts - how smart can they be?

I don't know about you, but if I get a bad vibe - a feeling of evil - I want out. I don't need any more information than that. If, however, I not only feel evil, but see this darkly dressed apparition standing in my doorway looking as though he wants to kill me - I'm probably leaving. If he then starts throwing shit at me, I am definitely out the door.

I cannot even imagine what my husband could possibly say to make me want to stay. Um, honey, don't worry about the fact that you are pregnant or that you have a 5-year-old daughter who is now to scared to sleep, let's see if we can get rid of the evil spirit.

Let's see if I can cut off your winkie and see how well you like that. Pack your shit and let's get the hell out!

That isn't the kind of haunting I am interested in living with. That kind of haunting is fun when it happens to others or when you can see it and then sprint out and go to sleep in your own unhaunted abode. And it doesn't take a brain surgeon to convince me to haul my happy pants out of there.

Happy hauntings - and may you all sleep well.

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