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Real Ghost Stories

Like many of you, I'm the victim of the "ok where did it go?" and "Where did that come from?" syndrom. This seems to be a favorite game of ghosties world wide. Of course sometimes you can find a mundane reason something has wandered off; forgetfulness, pets, another human agent, but now and then you just have to scratch your head and say, "Huh..."

Mostly it's the 'gifts', for a lack of a better word, that make me frown with puzzlement. These did not happen all at once, but have taken place in this apartment over the years;

* thin lines of sand appearing on tables and other flat surfaces. No beach or sandboxes anywhere around.

* money just showing up out of no where, never a lot but just 'enough'.

* an old fashioned nail - the kind with flat sides, and a square head just appeared in the middle of my bedroom floor. It was rusted and bent.

Not like my bedroom is a main thoroughfare - so no idea how that got there.

* screws, staples, odd pieces of coloured glass just found scattered about different rooms at different times.

These are some examples, but the weirdest by far happened very recently, back in March. I had been doing hand wash in the bathtub, because I have a cat I always shake out the items before adding them to the soap water - wet pet hair is almost impossible to remove. Into the water they go, let them soak a bit, then scrub them one at a time. Drain the water, moving and pressing down on the items to get as much of the soap water out as possible, then refill to rinse. These happened to be white items, and after draining the rinse water, I decided they weren't very white, so I'd bleach them. Another refill with bleach and more soap, and a nice long soak. By now, that tub has been filled then drained 5 times, and is filled with very hot water. I'm draining out the bleach water, and in the bottom of the tub sits of all things a carrot coin! Crisp and very fresh looking. But... We haven't had carrots fresh, canned, or frozen in months.

In the same time frame as finding the carrot coin, other things of a non-paranormal nature took place. It had been discovered by the people in the downstairs apartment, that a homeless 'friend' of my roommate's was staying in the basement, which is completely illegal. Long story short, things got a bit heated, when I told this guy he had to go the first time. The second time, I said police would be called if he was even seen anywhere on the property. Think Charles Manson - that is the type of red flags my brain was urgently waving when I handed him his back pack and said he could not stay. Every fiber of my being screamed this was NOT a nice guy, down on his luck. Definitely not someone I wanted in my home or anywhere near me. Later, I would find out, that though not exactly Manson caliber this really was not a nice guy, he had prison time for violence and drugs, both taking and dealing, as well as assorted other crimes.

Late April I discovered my small silver jewel box was missing. I thought I half remembered moving it, but for the life of me could not find it anywhere. I looked high and low multiple times. In things, under, and behind. I even evoked the powers of OCD cleaning. That wee box was nowhere to be seen, and I was heart broken. Not only because it had sentimental value for me, but so did it's contents, the main 2 being my mom's twin ruby ring from the 40s, and a small cameo pendant that is around 90 years old. You just can't replace those sort of things.

I grilled my roomate on if his 'friend' or anyone else had been in our apartment, to which he said no.

June came, and I had started to think, maybe the flatmate wasn't being totally honest, as this little escaped of his 'friend' crashing in the basement had caused some friction. But, I still kept looking, even in the most illogical places for it to be (under the sink, the freezer, and even down in the basement.)

One night I was talking with a friend, and she asked about the box. I sighed and said, "Guess my last hope is with the ghosties - maybe they could find it." And that's when things got Weird, with a capitol W.

The next day, I was overcome by the urge to look again in the foyer closet. I had cleaned this closet inside out - twice in my search. Up on the shelf (which is above my head) sits a cardboard 'catch all' box. I'd been though it a few times already, but what the heck. With difficulty I brought it down, and peering in, there sat an old, wooden cigar box, I had NEVER seen before. Flatmate claimed the same. Inside that box was not only my silver box (with all it's contents!) but things that had been missing for months or years! Gotta say, I was so excited I was practically doing the pee-pee dance. There were my best scissors (gone 2 months), a ring the roomie lost 6 years ago, assorted change, a couple of old receipts from like 2013 and 1997 for groceries, and a few odds and ends. My best guess, is who ever was listening, took compassion on me and brought back every thing they could, plus a bit. But, I do wonder, if somewhere someone is saying, "Where did my cigar box go?"