Ghosties!

I heard two ghost stories this morning that were too good to pass up. It IS Halloween after all. And the best is that they were told by two reliable, trustworthy people with heads full of common sense. Soo...take them as they are. I love things like this. Not that I like thinking about the paranormal or watch demonic scary movies to get a thrill. But I like thinking that there are some things that happen that I can not understand.

Story Number 1:
My art professor told this to my Surface Design Class this morning. Professor Tierney is the coolest, and he's pretty darn good at telling a story, too.

There is a couple, Gabe and Heather that have a love for buying old ruined houses, fixing and renovating them and then selling them for a profit. A few years ago they bought an old house that had been built on historic battle site grounds, right here in Nashville. The house was pretty much a wreck when they first moved in and all of the rooms were going to have to be reworked. They started with the upstairs and moved downwards, hoping to fix the anteroom last. (That's the big foyer type room that you come into when you enter the front door for all of you that don't live in the South and see Civil War era homes often.) So Gabe and Heather went about their renovations and eventually got to the point where they replaced all the door knobs with glass knobs like the original. However, there was one room where the door knob would just not stay. They would put it in, and then the next time they came across it, it would have fallen out. They called a locksmith and he said there was nothing at all wrong with the door and there was nothing they could do. But they just attributed it to the age of the house. They also heard strange noises, bumps, walking, you know...typical "haunted house" occurrences. The couple just laughed it off and got used to the strange noises and things eventually. They noticed that when they were in the house together, the noises weren't so bad...but if they were ever alone in the house, the weird stuff became kinda unbearable. But still, they weren't worried about it. They were sensible people and refused to become frightened by a few noises and a house that went "bump" in the night. Eventually, the house was almost completely redone, the only room left to renovate was the Anteroom. So they called a friend of their's in the church that did some construction and flooring work to replace the wood floors and sand it down. He came with one of his employees and began to replace the planks, yadda yadda, handyman stuff. They were pretty far into their work when Cody, the friend from church decided to run back to the shop to pick up the finish they were going to need after sanding down the floors. His employee, James, stayed behind. Abut 10 minutes after Cody left, the sander just stopped working. So James went to go see if the cord was plugged into the outlet. It was...so he switched the sander on and off again, and eventually changed outlets. But it still wasn't working. The house had been rewired recently because of all the work on it, so he decided before calling it quits and assuming the sander was just broken, he'd check the breaker. He made his way down to the basement, switched the appropriate switch and voila, the sander started working again. Sooo...he was at it for a few minutes when it turned off again. He went back downstairs and messed with the breaker, thinking there was a short, and the sander started back up again. BUT, it turned off again. Getting a little frustrated, he called Cody at the shop saying that the wiring they had done earlier for Gabe and Heather must be faulty since he couldn't get the Sander to work. Cody replied that he was on his way and to just hold on til he got there. At this point, the entire house's electricity went out. James was starting to get really annoyed, so he made one last trip down to the basement, flipped all the switches, double checked them, and attempted to fix the electricity so he could use his irritating sander. After about five minutes of fiddling with that, everything came back on and he went back upstairs. But when he entered the Anteroom, the sander had been taken apart, piece by piece. Every screw, every bolt, every belt...everything had been taken apart and laid neatly and organized on the floor like a diagram. James flipped out and ran outside to wait on the curb for Cody. When his boss got there, he was pale as all get out and refused to go back inside. At first, Cody got mad and asked him why he took apart the sander, but when he looked again, he realized James had no tools, and even if he had it would have taken hours to do it; James could have never completely torn apart this sander in the 15 minutes he was gone to go get some finish. (Ooooh....creeeeeeepy!) Of course, when Gabe and Heather came home and heard the story they started investigating the history of the house. Turns out it had been owned by a sweet lady in the 40s. She was known as a kinda adopted grandmother to all the kids on the street. One of the kids who had lived there when he was little had grown up and actually still lived on the same street with his wife. He said that when they were all kids they loved going to this lady's house and playing after school and stuff. But they all remember playing with and talking to the "man in a gray suit". He remembers telling the lady who owned the house about this man that was always upstairs, the "man in a gray suit" but she always thought the kids were just playing around. Later on, the woman herself died in the house, alone. Needless to say, Gabe and Heather were glad to make a profit off of this house. Even if the only really scary thing was a household ghost taking apart their construction appliances. ;)

Isn't it shivery!!? Happy Halloween everybody, stay safe and have fun!