Now Things Are Going Bump in the Day

I am giving you a day off from the Puppy Jack Chronicles to dwell upon my other hackneyed topic: the haunting of my homestead.

Last night, around 8:10, The Pony came to my office to tell me he was going upstairs to run a bath in the big triangle tub in my bathroom. And also to give me some info that I could have done without.

"Oh, Mom. Something really weird just happened again. I was laying on the couch, and my bag of connector tips for my laptop power supply jumped off the table. I was nowhere near it. And all the connectors spilled out, even though I had it closed. THEN a penny that has been sitting on the table for a couple of weeks jumped off. It went right where the bag went. Straight down off the edge of the table."

"Uh. Thanks. You didn't really have to tell me that UNTIL TOMORROW! You're going upstairs and leaving me down here."

"Sorry. I thought you'd want to know."

Let the record show that earlier that afternoon, around 4:00, The Pony decided to make some fudge. Not that he would be considered a cook or anything. He IS a fan of the Food Network. But he doesn't cook, unless it's boiling up a pan of pasta and leaving me the dishes. However, he is also a fan of the FUDGE that blog buddy Sioux brought us on the writing conference trip. He wanted to make his own. And Sioux gave us the recipe! So simple, even a Pony could do it.

Let the record further show that his fudge-making adventure was a success. However...he was in the kitchen upstairs, measuring and pouring and microwaving and stirring, and I was sitting in my dark basement lair following the solar car race by GPS tracking. I didn't figure he'd get hurt, like I did yesterday, slicing my finger on a plastic lid for a foil pan of broccoli and cauliflower over in the BARn. Oh, don't worry. The Pony did not get hurt.

"WHAT? Did you need me?" The Pony came halfway down the basement stairs during the fudge-making process.

"No. I'm fine. Just watching the race."

"You hollered."

"I didn't call you."

"No. You hollered. I thought maybe you were hurt."

"What do you think I said?"

"I heard you! You yelled, 'GAWD!' Like when you cut your finger yesterday in the BARn."

"Nope. I didn't say anything. I was sitting here at my computer, watching Genius's car race."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I am definitely sure I did not say anything."

"Because I was in the kitchen, and dropped a big spoon back into the drawer, and I'm sure I heard you yell, 'GAWD!' And I thought, I bet she wonders WHAT I've broken now. But it sounded like you were hurt."

"I'm fine. Nothing wrong."

I would think that maybe he has a vivid imagination, but he's come running before when he's downstairs, and I'm in the kitchen, asking what I want him to do. He says I called his name. And the other evening, he heard Hick call his name. I do not hear anything call my name.

Also, I saw that Coke can jump off that table myself a while back (as described on my super-secret blog), or I would think maybe The Pony was exaggerating after he bumped the table, or that he'd fallen asleep on the couch and dreamed it.

I know you're running out of polite comments to leave, while you collectively look at each other from across the country and give the ol' crazy finger twirl beside your ear.

I had The Pony take a picture of those objects and their original positions. Don't mind the piles of chips and snacks he hoards around his gaming couch.

Kind of blurry. I don't think that's due to anything other-worldly, just The Pony's shaky phone-hands.

That's not a dirty table. It's a piece of tape from a sign I put there welcoming The Pony back from his three-seek sojourn with HIS PEOPLE two summers ago at Missouri Scholars Academy. The Pony likes to save things like his dad. It's still hanging there.

Let the very thick record show that this coffee table came from Hick's apartment, and that he purchased it from a junk store. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

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Oh, and I am adding this part later because I forgot to include it...later that night, at around 11:30, I went from my lair to my chair to watch some TV. I had just sat down, cranked back the recliner, pushed the button for the DVR, and was thumbing up the volume with the remote when my TV jumped to the blue screen of death!

Okay, so it's not that fatal with a TV. But for me it is, because I spent about 45 minutes trying to put it back so I could watch my Big Brother After Dark. That remote would not respond for me. I pushed every button near the volume controls. I was sure I had hit something by accident. But I could not make the TV recognize the satellite.

I gave up. I went upstairs to wake The Pony. "Can you please come down and fix the TV. I don't know what I've done to it. And you need to show me what you do. Because once you go to college, I won't be able to watch TV!"

The Pony dragged himself from slumber and followed me to the dimly-lit basement. He took one look at the blue TV, and started searching his junked-up table. He picked up the remote for the DVD player. Discarded it. "That's not the one I'm looking for." He turned and rummaged around on the book-stacked wooden TV tray that I use for a side table. "This is it." He picked up a different remote, pushed one button, and my TV was magically fixed.

"What did you do? That was so easy! Show me on the satellite remote, so I know next time I mess it up."

"Mom. NOTHING you could hit on that satellite remote could do this. Nothing you hit there would have put it on the blue screen. It has to be this TV remote. You just hit "menu" and click down until it goes to Auxiliary 1."

"So THAT'S why nothing I did with the satellite remote made it respond?"

"Yep. You needed the TV remote."

"Then how did it get that way to start with? When I was clicking the volume? I had just sat down, all ready to watch my recording, and it did that! I was almost in tears. That's why I woke you. I really wanted to watch my show."

"I don't know how it got that way. It's done that once before, remember? And we didn't understand then, either. There's nothing on the satellite remote you were using that could have put the TV in that mode."

Funny how only that afternoon, just before the alleged GAWD-yelling incident, I had left a comment on blog buddy Linda's post explaining a random toy-turning-itself-on incident in our basement. And didn't make THAT coincidental connection until just now, 1:30 a.m. as I update.