char *(null)="
family.poltergeist
family.poltergeist
From: Susananita@aol.com
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1995 16:56:44 -0500
To: obiwan@netcom.com
Subject: Re: Our Family Poltergeist
Some people have a pet dog or cat, in our house I guess you could
say we had a pet poltergeist. Since I was eight years old I've been
plagued periodically by unexplainable phenomena. My brother had
problems with this too. Whenever anything happened that seemingly
had no explanation, we would nudge each other and say "Oh sh*t,
Polty's been here again."
No one else in the family bought this however, at least not when we
were still kids. Lately, I think, my parents have come to accept the
poltergeist theory too, because some things are still happening to
them.
Polty pulled a lot of crap. Usually taking things which would cause
weeks of searching, and then return it in a very obvious place once
we'd given up the item for lost. He made his debut in my life by
throwing a white T-shirt at me when I was alone in a room. This
was the only time I ever SAW anything move on its own.
Things would happen in waves. For several weeks I couldn't
keep my closet door shut. Even though it was a hard-to-open door
and kept dragging on the shag carpeting, each morning I would find
this door wide open. Polty would then leave and come back in a
few years to hide record albums for a few weeks. Then after
another long stretch of time I'd start to hear footsteps go up and
down the stairs when nobody else was home. And on and on.
He scared me a few times in the past, but mostly he was, and still is,
just pain-in-the-ass mischievous. Sometimes Polty's target of fancy
was bit peculiar though, and as in following account, he sometimes
caused me grief.
Every winter when we were kids, my Dad put in a skating rink in
our backyard for us to skate on. After school each day, some of
my girlfriends and I would pull on our skates and try to get in as
much skating time as possible. We were lucky if we got ten minutes
on the ice because by that time my brother and his friends arrived
and literally threw us off the rink so they could play hockey. They'd
play until bedtime and I'd never get a chance to get back on and
practice figure eights. All complaints to my parents fell on deaf ears
and to say I was angry would be putting it mildly. This was not the
first year I had to put up with this and it wouldn't be the last. But I
also felt that there was nothing I could do about it so I suffered in
silence. Understandably I developed a hatred of hockey and
refused to go to any of my brother's games.
My brother used leave his hockey stick propped up outside, against
the back of the house until my Dad ordered him to start bringing it in
the garage when he was done with it every night. Dad was a
creature of habit and never failed to make sure the garage was
locked up tight before he went to bed.
One morning my brother went into the garage to find his hockey
stick broken. It was as if someone had held each end of the stick with
each hand and cracked it over their knee. It was not broken
completely in half, but it was just hanging by a few wooden strands.
The garage had been securely locked and no one could have
broken into it. This was passed off as a 'domino effect freak
accident' of some sort, having to do with the car pushing up against
some of the other junk in the garage that somehow pressed against
the stick, causing it to break. My brother had other sticks there that
were untouched, however the one that broke was his favorite. My
brother got a new stick and everything seemed fine.
A week later, his new stick was found broken in the garage too, in
much the same manner as before. Again the doors were all locked.
No one outside the family had a key. This had everyone scratching
their heads. My brother bought another stick and Dad straightened
out the garage a bit.
When the third hockey stick was found broken several weeks
later, Dad wasn't just suspicious, he was downright angry. He felt
that this was an 'inside' job and all eyes fell on me. Unfortunately
my brother and parents were on their way to a game and would
now be rushed to the sports good store to buy a new stick before
the puck was dropped. Protesting my innocence was useless and
I was not allowed on the rink for the rest of the year. Wouldn't you
know, the sticks were never found broken in the garage again.
Many years later my brother and I were talking about this incident
and I told him again, that I had not touched any of his hockey sticks
that were found broken in the garage. To my surprise he believed
me. He told me that he had taken his stick to a nearby park
to practice. When he was ready to leave, everybody else had
already gone home. He propped his stick up against a tree while he
changed out of his skates. As he was pulling on his boots he heard
a loud 'snap' behind him. He turned around just in time to see the
now bent stick topple away from the tree and into the snow. He
said he just got up and ran from the park like a bat out of hell, leaving
the stick behind.
Sue
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