At the house I worked at back in Arizona, one of the guys that worked the overnight shifts told me that there was a ghost. He thougth it was centered in one of the bedrooms, which he said was always frigidly cold, that it felt like an evil spirit to him. (I never noticed any unusual temperature variations other than it felt warm at the time of day when the sun hit that side of the house.) The VCR was wonky. He frequently had trouble getting it to work. I never did. Then again, he used to bring in some nasty horror movies (like, more serious than the usual Freddy, Mike Myers, et al.). Me, I'd bring in Princess Bride and things like that. When one of the fellas who lived there retired and was home during the day, he got to go grocery shopping and plan out his lunches. At first he chose canned chili and Chef Boyardee sorts of things. Then he started saying "That boy over there won't let me eat my lunch. He said not to eat it." After a while it occurred to me - whether it was that fella's subconscious or a friendly spirit offering sound nutritional advice - to make batches of homemade chili and soup to put up in single servings in the freezer. Once I did that, no more talk of "that boy over there". I sort of put two and two together and decided the spirit was not so much evil as hostile to that staff member for bringing in such negative movies. One day when I was alone in the house, I said aloud, "As long as you don't harm my guys, you are welcome here. But if you do do anything to hurt them, I will make you leave."

That needs a like button.

These stories aren't bad, exceot the steps in the hall - how did you ever sleep?!- but this is why I don't watch scary movies. I saw one at a drive in in high school that was set in a woodsy area where something bad would happen right after the wind blew and a bunch of leaves clattered in the wind. I am too outdoorsy a person to have that kind of thing in my head! It took decades, like, into my 30s, possibly in my 40s, before I stopped being creeped out and scared by that same sound.

Callaluna, your kitty Isabella is still going after 5 years of subq?! Did you do anything else, or, was she young to start with? Java will turn 18 this year. If he was a human, he'd be heading to college!

Andi, I love that! A ghost who cares about proper nutrition.

Java, I don't know, maybe it started when I was young enough to just accept it as just another part of the house. I was only 4 when mom and I moved in.

The best part of all the ghost stories, IMHO, was Zenkitty's friend pouring the ghost a cup of coffee and then returning to her book.

Callaluna, your kitty Isabella is still going after 5 years of subq?! Did you do anything else, or, was she young to start with?

She was about 3 years old when this happened. She got sick, they could not figure out why. We had hundreds of dollars worth of tests done, and they ruled out a lot of things. In the end, they told us they believed she had intestinal cancer, but the only way to confirm was a test that would cost hundreds. I asked what the treatment would be if we decided not to have the test: special food and SubQ fluids and a pill every day (I think it was steroids, but it was a long time ago now). I asked what the treatment for intestinal cancer was. Same. So we skipped the test and went straight to the treatments. I gave her the pills every day and the subQ fluids every other day for a year. And then she got better. We don't know why. I have no contact with my ex-husband, but I am in touch with his mom and get Isabella updates. She is getting kind of old now, but is still relatively healthy. She has had a few recurrences of poor health, but has always pulled through. As far as I know, he doesn't give her subQ fluids anymore. He was always totally freaked out by it, so I hope for her sake she didn't need it!

G., being the person she is, said Good morning and got up, poured a cup of coffee and set it down for the ghost, and went back to reading.

This is my new favorite ghost story.

I don't have much in the way of ghost stories, but there's a place on the New Forest moors (in Darkest Hampshire, where my parents live) that I'm certain is haunted. My mother and I have both had weird 'this place is not right' feelings while crossing that moor, especially when dusk is falling. A long time after I started thinking that it was haunted, I came across an old pub on the edge of the moor where they have lots of old memorabilia and pictures etc to do with the history of the area. That part of the moor turned out to be a place where they hanged highwaymen off a specific tree. Fun times.

George reminds me a little of Phantom Dennis.

I have no ghost stories to tell, but it's fun listening to others'.

Me, neither, Bev. And that despite living in what my grandfather referred to as "the ghost house." My folks had a big old Victorian built in 1894 and you would have thought it had at least one ghost! Not so lucky. Unless there was one up on the third floor. My brother had the servant's quarters for his living space and it was always cold because even the central heating had a hard time keeping it to temperature. Mike was the type who probably would have made friends with it and then made mischief.

I couldn't deal with it if one of the people in the room was all clinging to some dumb theory and I couldn't just burst out with "Why so stupid?"

I was on a jury where the prosecution's evidence didn't come close to convicting the defendant. But two jurors said, "She just looks guilty." For what it's worth, they were white and the defendant was black. However, the rest of us were willing to come in the next day to hash things out and the two dissenting jurors said they couldn't afford to miss the work and gave in. In that particular case, fiscal privilege trumped racial issues. Not exactly "yay," but I'm glad an innocent woman didn't go to prison.

Re: ghosts. My senior year in college I was in a dorm where we believed a ghost haunted the elevators. We could call out to her from the lobby and the elevator would be available right away. If you didn't involk her name the elevator could take 5-10 minutes.