On Lights and Remotes and Otherworldly Beings

Since we took few pictures this weekend as Micha and I both got unpleasantly sick - though two separate things, oddly enough, which have us stuck at home today and somewhat weirded out by being home together on a weekday - I figured I'd skip the my-weekend-in-not-so-many-pictures post and talk about something completely random. Well, maybe not completely. Halloween will be here soon, after all...

So we have a ghost, I'm pretty much certain of that. It all started a few months ago when our TV decided to start being finicky. At first we just thought the service sucked - it kind of does - but then, one night, while we were both sprawled across the couch and the remote - or rather, all four remotes, only one of which is really needed - were hanging out merrily on the coffee table, it happened. The channel just...changed. Out of nowhere. Micha and I kind of looked at each other like, did your foot hit the remote...? Did you really want to stop watching Deadliest Catch that bad? (No idea what we were actually watching, but likely that or Ice Pilots late at night.) And then we changed it back and went on with our night.

We didn't think too much of it until it started happening at more frequent intervals. Like, about 1-2 times a week. Or multiple times within the hour. Concurrently, the hallway lights started to behave erratically as well, choosing to turn on and off on a whim, regardless of what the switch told them they should be doing.

Obviously, the only explanation here -that I immediately came up with - was a ghost. We have a ghost. It makes perfect sense - our apartment building is from the early 1900s and it's certainly seen a lot of inhabitants come and go and, very plausibly, kick the bucket during its more than a century of existence.

The funny thing is that the idea of our house ghost has now become so completely quotidian that I totally miss out on the weird looks people give me when I mention him. Can't turn the hall light on when you get up in the middle of the night? Oh, ghost...that's not very nice. Remote won't work and you're stuck watching a political talk show instead of German reruns of the The Big Bang Theory? Oh ghost, why do you have such a faux sophisticated taste in TV programs? A glass fell off the kitchen counter and broke (again)? Oh ghost, you're clumsy too!

And therein lies my probably favorite part about our friendly (at least so far) house ghost: I am no longer blamed for all broken/spilled/misplaced items in the apartment. It's the perfect scapegoat that I never really knew I needed.

(On a side note, I am now somewhat determined to start researching the history of our apartment building. On a scale of 1 - 10, how crazy do you think the German Bürgeramt workers will think I am when I call to inquire? On second thought...no, don't answer that.)

Photo by Kirill Vorontsov, pinned by Tina