I am still home today and still feeling nasty, though not quite so bad as yesterday. In between frantic, but less frequent, dashes to view the porcelain sculpture, I have been reading my book, browsing blogs and watching a bit of TV.
It’s only 11am and I am bored already.
I should now be logging in to my work e-mail and seeing what’s there but I figure what the heck, it’ll wait…
Instead I am going to share a weird, tingly story that mystifies me to this day. All my friends refuse to listen to me talk about this anymore so I’m going to share it with my friends in cyberspace.
In my early 30’s I had a short stint as a part time nanny but I was not a very good one. What I mean is I was responsible and all that and really liked the kid I cared for but I just didn’t really love being a nanny and I think it’s one of those jobs that’s actually more of a calling that a job. It fitted in nicely with what I needed at the time as I was studying part time, Rory was 3 and I could bring him with me for the couple of days a week I was needed.
Anyway…
I was lying on the lounge floor playing with Rory and with 4 year old Imogen when Imogen’s mum, Sandra arrived home to their small farm 30 minutes south of the city. As she came in the front door she called out “Hi, where are you all?”. Her coming home unexpectedly was not unusual so we just continued playing and I yelled out to her in the hallway “Hi, we’re in the lounge”.
I heard her walk up the hall into the kitchen, open the fridge and then she asked “Have you guys had lunch yet? Shall I make us some sandwiches?”. I said that would be great and then heard her taking things out of the fridge and getting some plates and glasses out of the cupboard.
A few minutes later the Lego zoo that Imogen, Rory and I had been building was complete and so we washed up for lunch. 
When we got to the kitchen the breakfast bar was set with plates and glasses and the bread, butter and some sliced ham were set out but Sandra was nowhere to be seen. The fridge door was hanging open. While I started preparing sandwiches for the kids, Imogen went to find her mum. A couple of minutes later she was back saying she couldn’t find her. I called out too but still Sandra didn’t respond. Now I was worried, had she fallen or something somewhere in the large house? After unsuccessfully searching for her again myself, I rang her flash new cell phone (it was still quite fancy having a cell phone here in NZ in the mid 90’s).
Sandra answered sounding flustered. She couldn’t talk right now as she was just going into a meeting with a client in the city and she was late and still needed time to prepare for her presentation. “Is it important?” she asked me. I was speechless. And completely and utterly spooked. And I still am to this day.
Rory and I never set foot inside that house again.
Too spooky.
ReplyDeletei always love hearing eerie stories like that and yet I've never had anything of the sort happen to me.
That's a good thing Bob, it still freaks me out today. Like a good horror movie though I do get a kick out of feeling scared so anyone who does want to share a scary story could do their own post about it - I'd love to read about it.
ReplyDeleteWow! Sometimes I wonder if I am somewhere in a parallel universe, (like Bizarro World on Seinfeld)
ReplyDeleteYour story is freaky!
Ps in case you're wondering, names have been changed in the retelling of this most freaky of experiences. The name Imogen is my favourite girls's name in the world but I never had a daughter on whom I could inflict it.
ReplyDeleteWow, that is distrubing and I am just talking about "dashes to view the porcelain sculpture" let alone the rest of the post. :-)
ReplyDeleteSpooky, and I don't blame you for walking away from that one at all.
ReplyDeleteHope you are feeling better soon, take care.
Spooky, weird, intense, bizarre, but very interesting.
ReplyDeleteSpooky. But, if you have to have a ghost around, at least it's a helpful ghost that makes lunch, right? I have some creepy stories that I just might have to blog about (yours is much better, though... not only hearing her, but also finding lunch laid out is the kicker)
ReplyDeleteThanks for comments.
ReplyDeletePeople keep pointing out to me that the most likely explanation is that I drifted off to sleep lying on the carpet with the kids, half asleep or sleep walked to the kitchen and dreamed I heard Sandra. I can't completely discount the theory for obvious reasons but it sure didn't seem like that to me nor did either of the kids think I'd fallen asleep at any stage (they were very young though and just mightn't have noticed).
Still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up to this day.
What happened to you is scary, but so cool! I love ghost stories, ghost hunting, etc.
ReplyDeleteI've never had an experience myself, but you know what? I'd be scared out of mind too and never return either, LOL. ;)
I think that in that case, there was a wrinkle in the time/space continuim. Or at least, that sounds like something someone would say, lol.
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, I think these things are possible...