char *(null)="
disappearing.pants
disappearing.pants
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From: "Jonathan W. Mills"
Subject: grandfather's last suit
Message-ID: <1994Oct9.183701.8493@news.cs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University
Date: Sun, 9 Oct 1994 18:36:58 -0500
Lines: 60
i don't believe in ghosts. i was once in a situation -- trussed up
in the back of a car, hostage to three persons, ready to be killed --
where i would have expected to have had some sort of telepathic link
to my nearest and dearest...and didn't. i am a skeptic.
but...
this happened to me. i don't understand it, and won't attempt to
explain it. go figure.
anyway.
my wife and i had been fortunate enough to move into my grandparent's
house when they had moved into a nursing home. grandmother died, but
grandfather stayed alert and active for years, although he gradually
declined. he had several bouts of pneumonia, but still stayed alert
and active, so much so that my mother and i, to give us room to store
my wife's and my stuff, moved all of grandfather's things into
labelled boxes (upstairs closet - top shelf; hall drawer - upper
left) so we could immediately get anything he wanted. he had no
trouble remembering where things were, either.
but eventually, well past 90, grandfather died. his funeral was
planned and mom retrieved a suit in which to bury his body. but...
the day before he was to be buried, in the late afternoon when my
wife was at work (i taught at a community college then, and had
just gotten home)...i went upstairs to go to the bathroom. as i
got to the head of the stairs, and looked into the bathroom, i saw
the mirrored door of the medicine chest on the bathroom wall slowly
-- oh so very slowly! -- swing open. my hair rose: this door has
a latch. then i heard a creak and looked to the left, and the door
of the closet where i kept my clothes, the same closet where my
grandfather kept -his- clothes, just as deliberately swung open.
ok, fine, i admit that this door had an old-fashioned latch and
didn't close all that well. still, this had never happened before.
i gritted my teeth and walked forward and shut first the closet door,
then the medicine chest door. no cold chills, no spooky lights or
noises, nothing. but...
a few days later my wife asked where one of my gray pairs of pants
had gone to. i still don't know. i've never seen them again, and
bought another pair to match the suit coat.
was grandfather wearing them? i don't know. it was a closed casket
service, and i didn't ask to see. i guess i didn't want to know.
but my mother thinks, and i'd tend to agree, that grandpa, who was
always a snappy dresser, didn't care for her choice of suit pants.
the day i had my wierd experience was the day he was prepared for his
burial.
coincidence? freak of nature? well, nothing else like that -ever-
happened again while we lived for another five years in that house.
i've never seen those pants again. who knows? i don't. but ever
since then i've been a lot more tolerant toward the paranormal, and
will be...
until someone can find that pair of pants!
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