Haunted

We have a ghost in our house.

Mind you, I don't believe in ghosts.  I used to work with a woman who insisted her house was haunted and that her ghost would do weird things like rearrange her glassware in her cupboards during the night.  I would smile and nod, but I always felt like there had to be some non-ghost explanation for things that maybe she was overlooking.

But then we started hearing footsteps in the house at night, noises that were louder and more defined than just "old house settling" noises.  And we would get up and there would be no one there.  But J and I each heard the noises, without question.

Then one night, my white noise machine next to my bed suddenly turned itself on in the middle of the night.  It came on much louder than I ever play it.  When I tried to turn it off or turn the sound down, none of the buttons or knobs would respond. 

This has happened a few times now.

Things will go missing and we'll spend hours or days looking for them only to have them turn up in plain sight, in a place where neither J nor I could have possibly missed them.  Like my keys, for example.  I have a set of keys on a red rubber stretchy wrist-band.  The red band is very bright and distinctive, making it easy to spot in a bag or whereever.  When I come in the house, I always put the keys either on the bench by the front door or on a little hook under the cabinet in the kitchen. 

And then one morning, I couldn't find them anywhere.   I looked on every surface, on the key hooks, on the floor, in the sofa cushions, behind furniture, in every pocket of every bag and jacket and pair of pants.  They were nowhere to be found.  I looked for them for days.

Finally, last week I gave up looking and went to the hardware store and had new keys cut.

Two days ago when I came in the house, J said, "Hey, you found your keys." 

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The keys you lost, the ones on the red stretchy thingy.  You found them."

"No, I didn't."

"But they're hanging from the key hook in the kitchen."

"They are??"

I went and looked.  There they were, innocently dangling from the hook where I had looked for them a hundred times in the past week.  J swears he never found them or put them there, I know I certainly didn't and neither of the children can reach that high.  No one else has been in the house.

Two nights ago I put my driver's license and ATM card on the top of my dresser.  That night, my noise machine turned itself on again.  In the morning, the driver's license was on the floor on the opposite side of the room from the dresser, and my bank card is nowhere to be found. 

I think our ghost is not malevolent, just playful and mischievous.  I just hope he or she doesn't have a big shopping jones to satisfy before my card is returned to me.