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I don't have a lot of experience with ghosts, so when a pal recently invited me to go check out a medium, I jumped at the opportunity. "
This is new! An adventure! A first! And yes, I'd also be delighted to cut out of work early!
My experience with ghostes-es is limited to:
* Dressing as one at the age of 4, when Mom wasn't feeling the whole "sewing and gluing thing."
* Hearing the story of a groom who'd crashed through ice and into the lake while sledding across to marry the bride who still walks the ice looking for him 200 years later.
* Seeing a ghost skitter through the graveyard. (It was possibly a dude cutting through on his way home from the jiffy store, but we ran screaming back to the car anyhow.)
* 1984-present: Regular viewings of "Ghostbusters."
As you can see, a little more contact with those who'd "crossed over" -- as the nomenclature dictates -- couldn't hurt. During the week between agreeing to go and getting into the car, I spent a lot of time envisioning candlelit Victorian rooms, shaking tables, Ouiji boards and crystal balls, all presided over by a withered old woman wearing enormous, tacky jewelry, weird nail polish on her gnarled fingers, dripping in scarves...on her head, her wrists and around her waist and all over the table. (I'm not sure where I got these ideas. A safe guess would be a few "Murder, She Wrote" episodes.)
As it turns out, the Ghost Whisperer was more Jennifer Love Hewitt and less Steven Tyler smeared in orange lipstick.
The longer I thought about who might want to send me a message during the show, the creepier it seemed. Maybe they would holler at me. Maybe they would embarrass me. As my anxiety rose, strange things began to happen.
I lost my wallet.
At first I didn't think anything of it. I've lost wallets before. But then I realized this could cause a problem getting into the venue and maybe was a sign not to go.
The next day, I lost my car keys and when I busted out the spares and started the car, Kurt Cobain started screaming at me to "Stay Away!"
When it was time to hop in the truck and head to Ghost Town, I realized I was out of gas and the spare key didn't work on the little gas door.
(As it turns out, a ghost hadn't misplaced the keys; they were on the kitchen counter.)
But I was already freaked and as I rushed to the show, I hoped no ghosts would try to talk to me. "The other people need the ghost wisdom more than I do, I'm sure," I shouted at the windshield. "You can just focus on them."
And then instead of a candlelit Victorian room with 10 shoeless people gathered around a crystal ball, there were a hundred people gathered in a bar with those tiny tables you always have to sit at when you go to comedy shows. I relaxed. Maybe the ghosts would leave me be. The medium -- who looked like a model and stomped around the room sharing secrets from beyond the grave in an impressive pair of tall, black-suede, wood-heeled boots -- stayed clear of me the entire night.
I was relieved. But it still would have been nice if one of the ghosts had told me where my wallet is...
