I hope that while they’re around for the Downtown Howell Ghost Tours this month, investigators from the Southeast Michigan Paranormals consider a visit to my house.
The Livingston County Convention and Visitors Bureau is sponsoring haunted tours of Howell’s historic downtown. For more information, click here.
So I am crossing my fingers for a ghost buster to come to my house because, dear reader, it’s haunted. How else to explain all the weird happenings in my sweet, little, 85-year-old, downtown-Howell bungalow?
Maury Coles, one of my favorite neighbors and a fount of Howellicana, told me the original owner of my house had been the Howell High School athletic director. (Or was it the football coach?)
While it might seem natural that it was the ghost of the original owner popping in to make us get off our big butts and run drills, these spirits are different: They’re active only when my son is around, which leads me to guess that they’re “tween” boys.
While I know a bit about them, I hope the professionals will be able to tell me a lot more. I hope, too, that they will rid my household of the mischievous buggers.
When we first moved into our house 20 years ago, we put up with a bump or two in the night, but that was nothing compared to what’s happened since the birth of my son 11 years ago.
The poltergeists have stepped up their game; now they appear regularly, at least once or twice a day, and they have ancient-sounding names: Sanaxident, Nomifolt and Eydno.
While their pranks are never life-threatening or dangerous, they are annoying as hell.
For example, just this weekend, my kid was pouring himself a glass of milk from a plastic, gallon jug, showing off a new move: pouring toward himself, rather than away as it’s usually done.
I looked at him in amazement as he began, and before I could open my mouth to stop him, his hands began to tremble and his eyes grew huge.
As it often does before something bad happens, time slowed. I watched in disbelief as my kid’s hands trembled more and more, and the jug tilted toward him quickly. Milk spurted from the jug, spraying my kid and the dining room table. As I jumped up to grab a towel and sop up the mess, I hollered: “What were you thinking?”
My kid shrugged.
“Sanaxident,” he said. “Nomifolt.”
“But why?” I cried. “Why would Sanaxident and Nomifolt do that?”
My kid shrugged again as he wiped milk from his face: “Eydno.”
Ah. Finally, it all made sense: My trio of poltergeists is an other-worldly version of Larry, Moe and Curly.
Or are they?
Heaven help the pros.
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