There are, by my count, two types of ghosts: vengeful spirits out for death and mayhem, and lost souls simply trying to make something right before moving on to the afterlife. There isn’t a whole lot you can do with the first type; they’re basically just pricks who are best avoided. The second type, however, often needs our help to resolve something before moving on. So if they need us, and ostensibly are not out to hurt people, why must they communicate with the living in the most pants-shittingly terrifying way possible?

It seems to me that it would be a lot easier to, say, help a person find your murderer if said person wasn’t climbing the walls in sheer, stupefying fear. If ghosts want our help, and I truly believe that they do, perhaps it’s time for them to take a look at themselves and find a better method for seeking assistance from the living, because scaring the bejesus out of us just isn’t cutting it. After all, not all of us have the steely reserve of a young Craig T. Nelson in Poltergeist.

For example, when I enter a room, I will be quite disinclined toward keeping an open mind and investigating a presumed mystery if I happen to catch, out of the corner of my eye, a half-decayed and mostly see-through woman hovering inches above me in the mirror. Call me old fashion if you must, but I find the thought of animated, partially-opaque human remains to be quite unsettling.

When you stop to think about it, ghosts have a whole litany of stunts that end up doing more harm than good. Consider the following:

Bleeding walls

Suddenly rearranged furniture

Cold chills and hot spots

Showing up unexpectedly in photography, mirrors, and in the eyes of children and animals

Disembodied, threatening voices

Causing hallucinations of past events

Leaving thick, slimy residue (ectoplasm, if you will) on whatever they touch

Dragging people into horrible ghost worlds

Starting unexplainable fires, often in dark rooms for whatever reason

Interrupting television and radio programs with startling images and sounds, and/or changing the station to an off-putting video or song over and over again

Locking people in rooms

Would you, as an average person, feel comfortable sticking around to assist the deceased after they pulled any of those stunts? Even if, somehow, they didn’t scare the hell out of you, they would almost certainly be a massive inconvenience. Who wants to continually unstack dining room chairs whenever you reenter the room, or clean up unexplained blood from a wall? Surely most of us have better things to do with our time.

Not only are most of these spirits’ pranks inconvenient, the could have a negative impact on your social life. It would be awfully difficult to have guests over if you were unable to keep you house at a comfortable, consistent temperature, and no one is going to want to visit you when they constantly hear spectral voices demanding that they “Get out” every time they drop by. The whole affair is unnecessary and inconvenient.

And what about possession? When did that become acceptable? Surely even the most unrefined undead must realize that infesting a human being and taking control of their body is quite an imposition, especially considering the recently deceased tend to pick the most inconvenient times to take control of your body. Most of us, after embarrassing ourselves in front of friends and family while possessed, aren’t going to stick around and try to help the lost soul who pulled those shenanigans. We’ll be a lot more likely to simply move, or, if we’re feeling brave, hire the finest team of ghost busters we can afford.

If spirits want our help, then they’re going to need to start working with us a little. Instead of frightening us, why not just leave us a nice note? And use a pen, no one wants to read something that appears to be scrawled hastily in human blood. Sure, it would still be pretty weird, but at least it’s a lot better than setting our dark room on fire.

This has been Dave sayin’: “Well, maybe she wouldn’t be a lesbian if you tucked your shirt in.”