I DO believe in spooks! I DO believe in spooks!

I've been spending all day reading a book about ghost hunting. Ghosts are my guilty pleasure. I love a good scare more than just about anything. And, well, though Peter makes fun of me all the time about the fact that I believe in the existence of ghosts, the fact of the matter is that I've had enough experiences with the supernatural to make me a believer. And, well, I would like to think that some people are more sensitive to ghosts and energy and unseen things than others. Just like some people may have certain allergies that others may not. I was raised with a healthy respect for spiritual things, for the things that cannot be explained away, for the various mysteries of the world.

One story in particular springs to mind. It was the summer before my senior year at Rahm Emanuel's alma mater(!), and I had come back early to participate in a Summer Leadership Institute. There were only a few of us on campus during that time, and it was nice to have the run of the place. Before there was my gay husband, there was my gay boyfriend, J. He was going to be the R.A. in one of the campus houses for the year, and during the Summer Institute he was the only one staying in the house, as the rest of the students hadn't returned from summer break to move in. He mentioned that he thought the house might be haunted. He talked about hearing strange noises, feeling temperature drops and waking up abruptly at 2 a.m. every morning, and he would complain about his keys going missing all the time. Now, any and all of these things can be attributed to causes other than the paranormal. And, while I am a believer, I am still ultimately more inclined to be skeptical. However, one piece of information was a little more difficult to shake off: He returned during our lunch break one day to find that all of the doors upstairs had been flung open. Doors that he did NOT have keys to, and doors that had been locked since he had moved in. He didn't think anything of it--perhaps a cleaning crew had just come through--and prepared his lunch. However, he had just taken a few bites of his (vegan) sandwich when a campus security guard stopped by, saw the open doors, and started yelling. "Why did you open the doors? Who gave you permission to do that?? These doors are to remain closed until the students get their keys!" J. said he had no idea why the doors were open. He had simply come home and found them that way. The security guard shook his head, locked the doors, and was on his way.

Fast forward a few nights later, when J. and I decided to have a slumber party. We were going to give ourselves manicures and facials, watch chick flicks, and shove our faces full of Dunkin' Donuts. Gay boyfriends are the BEST. We stepped in the house, J. set down his keys in their usual spot on the front table, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I could feel a presence, and I sent it a very clear message: LEAVE ME ALONE. I wanted to enjoy my evening without having to solve some ghost's silly problems, thankyouverymuch. J. and I picked out a movie and were heading to pick up our Dunkies when we noticed that his keys were gone. We had both seen him put them down on the table, and we were the only two people in the house. We did a thorough search of the downstairs portion of the house and eventually found them under J.'s pillow. "Oh, aren't YOU cute," I said out loud. "Seriously. KNOCK IT OFF." And the ghost DID knock it off. J. and I got our sweets, made sure that all of the doors to the house were bolted, and settled in to watch our movie. We thought that we had taken care of that ghost. At least until the next morning.

I awoke to the sound of footsteps stomping loudly in a circle in the room directly above me. "HOLY CRAP!" said J., "You must have really pissed it off!" We sat there, holding onto each other, completely petrified. Again, I was no stranger to ghosts, but I had never heard one quite this angry before. We thought that maybe we were hearing things, that maybe the floorboards were just creaking, or that it was somehow the wind, but the stomping just kept going and going and going and going. We talked about whether or not we should venture upstairs to check it out, but we decided against it. We were too scared, PLUS, the doors had been securely locked all night long. There's no way anyone could have gotten in, and a security guard wasn't likely to go up to an empty room just to stomp in a circle over and over and over. I exited J.'s room and walked through the living room to get to the bathroom when I saw the doors upstairs--the ones that the security guard had locked--opening and shutting. When I was in the bathroom the footsteps followed me and stomped around above my head. J. and I were both FREAKING OUT, to the point that poor J. started dry-heaving :(. The stomping continued (though the slamming doors stopped), and as J. and I were leaving the house, all of the toilets started flushing one by one.

We decided it best to not tell anyone about this at the Leadership Institute. While most people participating were very open-minded, we had a feeling that people would just think we were doing too many drugs (no, I didn't do drugs, and J. had already been through rehab and was squeaky clean). A few days later the students moved in. That night, J. woke up at 2 a.m. and felt compelled to check the kitchen stove. It was on, all of the knobs turned to HIGH, and no one had been cooking that night. J. had been the last person to use the kitchen, and the stove had not yet been touched. Just to be sure, he posted a sign, reminding everyone to turn off the stove after using it. He also had a discussion with his advisees. But, like clockwork, each night at 2 a.m., J. would wake up, check the stove, and see all of the burners turned to HIGH, even if they had been off right before he went to bed.

We eventually performed a small ceremony--complete with sage--and the ghost left. But it's an experience I'll never forget.