Sometimes, the Scariest Things Are Those You CAN Explain

We seem to having a spate of paranormal inactivity lately. The only odd things being the standard smudge on my spectacles that I leave in my office, and the light at the end of the pool table going off, then slyly coming back on when I turn to look at it. Oh, I heard Hick stumping around upstairs at 8:10 Saturday night when he returned from the auction. Except I heard him come in the door and stump some more at 9:15, the time he actually arrived home. So it's been pretty minor.

I still hear footsteps upstairs when I'm laying back in my OPC (Old People Chair) watching TV between midnight and 3:00. And sometimes, when I go upstairs to bed, I can feel someone/something in the master bathroom when I walk in. I don't turn on the light, so as not to disturb the breathered beauty sleep of Hick. I close the door behind me, and in that instant before I turn on the light, there's sometimes a palpable heaviness to the air, as if I'm not alone. Occasionally the crack of the floor tile settling over towards the toilet.

When I turn on the light, I halfway expect to see something in there with me. That's probably just PTSD from the time HICK was sitting on the toilet when I turned on the light! Sheesh! You'd think he could have closed the door, or had the light on, or called out, "I'm in here" when I walked in. Or maybe he is still trying to kill me (I'm pretty sure), and a heart attack is one of the ways he can't be traced.

Anyhoo... Saturday night, I changed into my sleepwear, turned out the light, and opened up the bathroom door to walk around the bed to my side. Let the record show that I'm blinder than a bat during this trek. My retinas are burned out from those seven giant globe lights over the bathroom sink. There are no landmarks to guide me around the end of the bed. We used to have a light out at Poolio, that I could see through the louvers of the french doors out onto the porch. But I guess that light doesn't work any more. I'm walking sightless.

I take it slow, and by the time I get to the corner at the foot of the bed, I can sense a faint glow where those doors are. So I reach out my left hand and feel for the bedpost. Then I know I'm at the right place to turn and walk along my side of the bed. I can make out the red numbers on my clock radio, but they don't illuminate even the rest of the nightstand. I have to feel for the edge of it before setting down my bubba cup of ice water.

Then I feel for the bed, to turn back the covers. I usually have to grip the side of the fitted sheet, and try to yank it down over the corner, because Hick has a way of spinning like one of those paper tubes in a cotton-candy vat, and rolling up in the bedclothes. Then I reach for my top pillow, to lift it up a bit, and perch it just right on my bottom pillow.

YEEEEEESH! What in the NOT-HEAVEN???

It was an ARM! A limp, living ARM laying across my pillow! Oh, the HORROR! I didn't so much lift it as wedge the back of my hand under it and try to shoo it back onto Hick's side of the bed. He snorted and started spinning, undoing the sheet-recovery that I'd just accomplished. But at least he was off my side of the bed. My pillow, however, was warm from his arm, and I had to flip it over.

I don't like a change in my routine. I really don't like finding an arm in my bed.