Sanctuary 2.0: More Ghost Stories

In the spirit of the season, here are three more events from my supposedly haunted house. It’s been a pretty quiet year, though, so don’t expect too much from this post.

Spookiness Level: 1/10
The Situation: I opened a sample size tub of Hustle Butter Luxe I had and found the tub empty. It was sitting on a side table in my living room for a long time, but I know I didn’t use it.
The Ghostly Explanation: A ghost used it. Colorado is dry and ghosts need to moisturize their, um, non-existent skin too.
The Logical Explanation: It evaporated or a friend used it.

Spookiness Level: 4/10
The Situation: I keep finding the door to the little closet where the hot water heater, microwave, and kitchen garbage can are open. This is the most recent of these three events. It’s happened many, many times just in the last six weeks or so. It’s open when I wake up in the morning, when I come home for work, or when I’m randomly doing stuff around the house. It happens a few times a week. You might be tempted to think it’s my dog, but he’s never been a garbage sniffer, ever. He’s never gone through the trash in any house I’ve lived in. He just ignores it. What can I say? He’s classier than your average bear.
The Ghostly Explanation: A ghost is opening the door to mess with my head.
The Logical Explanation: Even though I really don’t think Trotsky is opening the door, maybe he is. Or maybe I’m going senile and constantly forgetting to close it.

Spookiness Level: 9/10
The Situation: I have an old travel trunk in my bedroom that I store things in. Several nights in a row in early May, I woke to the hinges rattling. No, they didn’t simply come unhinged and fall into the open position. They were making a sound like they were moving up and down multiple times, and they were still in the up position when I woke up. There’s a small possibility that it was my dog bumping into them in his sleep, but during my year and a half in this house, he had never done that. Also, the hinges are too high up compared to where his sleeping body is. I don’t see how he would have bumped them if he was chasing squirrels in his sleep. Of the three incidents, this is the only one that genuinely freaked me out. I woke up and froze in my bed each time, listening. The third night it happened I finally dared to turn on the light, but of course I didn’t see anything…except Trotsky passed out too far away from the trunk for it to possibly have been him.
The Ghostly Explanation: Again, just ghosts trying to mess with me and make sure that I don’t get enough sleep.
The Logical Explanation: Again, it’s tempting to blame Trotsky. Dogs twitch in their sleep but like I said, I don’t see how his feet would have reached the hinges.

Bonus Event!

Last weekend I did a trail run in Morrison, Colorado. At the end of the run, I got my phone from the car to snap a picture of Red Rocks from the outside. As I stood at the edge of the parking lot, a distinctly non-human voice said, “Hello. Hello. Hello.” I looked around but saw no one. Then I looked up. A crow sat in the tree above me. We stared at each other for several seconds before I tentatively replied, “Hello?” Apparently not in the mood for conversation, he flew away. It turns out in zoos and wildlife centers, crows do learn to mimic human sounds. If this one made his home at a popular trail head, it’s possible he learned too. Still, it freaked me out a little for the rest of the day, but at least it wasn’t one of the dozens of chicken statues in my little house that spoke to me.