Near miss, skeeered
My Friday almost got off to a miserable start. It was pitch dark as I walked out to the kitchen and then flicked on the big overhead light. As I glanced back, I saw a big ass hairball and the accompanying throw up in the middle of the small area I walked through to get to the kitchen. I was just lucky to have cleanly stepped over it. So I grabbed the clean up gear and scrubbed away. I thought my janitor duty was done but of course I was wrong. Cat barf never travels alone. So as I walked around the right side of the island I spotted another nice half dollar size pile. Then to top it off, as I was reaching down cleaning this spot, off to the right maybe 18 inches is one of Button’s patented skid marks. I was so f’ing annoyed. A cat will never, ever be under my roof again once these two vacate the planet.
As I was laying in bed last night, trying to fall asleep after watching yet another good episode of Ultimate Fighter I was hearing things. This isn’t something new, I just never mentioned it before. In our bedroom we have an air cleaner running that provides white noise that makes it easier for me to fall asleep. However even with that running, I sometimes hear weird things as I am trying to fall asleep. Sometimes it sounds like music, sometimes it sounds like muffled speech. If we have the dishwasher running that normally adds to the ambient noise. Eventually the noise, whatever it is, fades into the background and I fall asleep.
As I was lying there, listening to the weirdness, it made me think about growing up and things I thought I may see or hear. Our house and property was downright scary at times for me. Our house in Gouglersville was an OLD farmhouse, I think it was built in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. It also had various out buildings including a huge old barn, workshop, garage and a genuine outhouse. Being that old, there were plenty of places for scary things to hide. Here are the most notable ones I can remember.
The barn was a scary place for me, especially the lower level. The lower level had horse stalls in it and a connected dark room that was filled with various junk. It was the area that the push mower was stored as well as our bikes so I had to go in there on a regular basis. If I just had to grab my bike and it was decently sunny out, it wasn’t bad. I would snag my bike and be out of there. However if I had to get something from deeper inside the barn and it was late in the day or God forbid, I had to go in there with a flashlight, it was borderline terrifying for me. I can clearly recall the fear of going around in there, totally expecting to see a ghost, a voice or a pair of glowing eyes looking back at me. I just had the feeling I was being watched. It freaked me out. Upstairs it wasn’t quite as scary unless I ventured into the back of the barn that had two small storage areas that looked like they would be a very cozy hiding spot for a serial killer or demon.
The basement of the house had a low ceiling, was dimly lit and had a musty smell that I for some reason enjoyed and remember very clearly. Down there was the big oil heater. It was also where the washing machine was located. I can’t tell you how many times I would be down there and feel like there was something waiting behind the heater, stalking me. When I would go down there I would normally try to do whatever I had to do and get out of there without looking around. The basement was only dimly lit by the light on a switch. To light up the rest you had to pull the chain on a couple light fixtures. I always feared that as I turned on one of these lights a bloody, gruesome thing would be illuminated before me.
The final scary thing was actually the weirdest one as it was actually created by my uncle and put in place by my mom. My brother and I slept in the renovated attic. The stairway down was right in the middle and at the bottom of it was a high shelf that went across. My uncle is an artist and one of his projects was this weird sculpture. It was a big furry head with a face that was set in about 3 inches and was facing to the right so you only saw part of the face. I hated this thing. It creeped me out big time. I remember thinking this thing was looking at me, moving it’s eyes and all sorts of other freaky shit. Just like the basement, I resorted to just not looking at it as I walked down the stairs although at times it felt like the head was watching my every move. Now and then I would shoot a glance at it. I never caught it actually moving. In retrospect I don’t know why I never asked my mom to move it. It really scared the shit out of me.
When my dad and step mom moved back to Gouglersville, they pretty much gutted the place and renovated everything top to bottom. In doing so they removed much of the scary factor.
This weekend I plan on getting out to see Spiderman 3. I have various chores already written down and ready to go. The most important one is fixing the fitting that the new pressure well switch is attached to. The pvc part has a small crack that is leaking badly. We have started getting some pretty regular afternoon rain, I may be able to cut back on the sprinkler schedule.