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.

After college I spent a couple of years traveling. At one point I was hiking across the Dartmoor in southern England. I camped in a picturesque little glen, and at midnight I awoke to fluttering sounds all around, and a light brushing against the tent, like tiny birds throwing themselves against it. Eventually the fluttering stopped and I heard what sounded like a chorus of sorrowful moaning, but surely was just a group of animals I wasn't familiar with. I looked outside several times, but never saw anything. Even though I had been hitchhiking and camping for most of a year, I felt unaccountably frightened that night and slept little.

The next morning, feeling a need for human contact, I hiked into the nearest village, and struck up a conversation with a somewhat elderly local woman and her very elderly mother. When I told them where I was camping, the younger woman expressed mock horror and said "Don't ever venture there at night, there has been a coven of witches there for centuries and if they find a young man like you they will steal him away!" The mother, who seemed to have taken her daughter seriously, said derisively "For God's say Della, he's not a virgin, they have no use for him! They will investigate him, and they will be upset when they find that he just won't do, but they aren't going to bother him. People these days know nothing about witches!"

Reassuring, I guess, but it was still the last night I spent on the moor.

"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."

Love it.

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.

Right? I aspire to such aplomb -- well, in general, but especially if I ever have a ghost story to tell.

Reassuring, I guess, but it was still the last night I spent on the moor.

Understandable. That's creeeeeepy. But I guess the sorrowful moaning worked out better for you in the end... hoots, hollers, and the sound of high-fives would have been much worse.

We had ghost stories about the dorms on campus when I was in college. Supposedly, there was one room and several girls who'd lived in it had killed themselves.

One dorm - build in the 1890s - had this kind of maze of rooms in the basement level, including one with a table that was set for a meal - all covered in dust.

One night one of the boys - drunk - brought a bunch of his friends in and they toured the basement. Noisy and annoying, but no harm done. At the end they kind of tumbled out of a side door; drunk, noisy, but nothing happened.

I just brought 44lbs of paper to the UPS store to be shredded.

My apartment is now about 12% decluttered.

"For God's say Della, he's not a virgin, they have no use for him!

Good a reason as any to get on with the sexy.

Enjoying the ghost stories. I have often felt that there was someone around, but they have never made themselves known. Or I didn't pick up the cues.

That's an impressive amount of paper.

Well done, Tom! I've been shredding a bit at a time at the office. We used to be able to take boxes of stuff unshredded to the recycle center and watch it be obliterated, but they stopped the program.

I got a 30% discount for having more than 30lbs of stuff! I actually saved money by hoarding all that shit for years and years!