The New Zombies

Once vampires were all the rage.  Now it’s zombies. But what about poltergeists? Poltergeists are going to be the new zombies. Where are all the poltergeists, you ask?  Well, one is hanging out at my house, and I can prove it.

A few weeks ago, I moved the White Out from the kitchen peninsula drawer to one near the calendar. I have used it since I moved it, but last time I dug for it, it was not there. “Obviously, Ann,” you say, “after you used it, you put it somewhere else and forgot where.”  Fair enough, but it’s not in the old drawer or the new. It’s not in my desk drawer, and it’s not out on the porch, either. Why would it be on the porch? I don’t know; that’s not the point. The point is, it’s not anywhere!

Next:  my favorite Christmas CD is the one where John Denver sings with the Muppets. (Were you under the impression I was a sophisticated, worldly-wise woman? Yeah, that’ll show you.) Every Christmas, I take the Muppets out and listen to them. I especially love Carol for a Christmas Tree. I have no idea why it’s called that; it’s not about a Christmas tree. There’s no tree mentioned in it at all. The song is not even about Christmas. It’s more Zen Philosophy Carol. It has a lovely, soft melody, and the words are:

It’s in every one of us to be wise,
Find your heart, open up both your eyes,
We can all know everything without ever knowing why
It’s in every one of us, by and by (by and by).

“Open up both your eyes,” that’s my very favorite line. It’s literal and metaphorical and lyrical all in one. I keep the CD on the bookcase with the other Christmas CDs, but this year, it was not there. I opened up both my eyes and really looked, but it wasn’t anywhere. Furthermore, I do not believe someone walked into my house, looked behind the easy chair on the bottom bookcase shelf and boosted the Muppets. The only logical explanation is a poltergeist.

Okay, at first I was kidding about the poltergeist. Like you, I figured that I misplaced things or loaned them to someone or did something with them.. Then, just before we left to visit my sister, I checked my address book for her cell phone number. I have a ring-bound address book so the open pages will sit flat on a table while you read the numbers and dial. I swear when I looked up a number earlier that morning, I had absolutely no issues. Now the Bs were not there. No, wait, the pages were rearranged. First was IJ/KL/MN/OP/QR/ST, then AB/CD/EF/GH and then, UV/WX/YZ. Wha?

Whatever you thought about the White Out and the CD, you can’t explain the alphabet mix-up, can you? No one can, and so I posit the following.

IF I put the white out and the CD away, but they disappeared,
And
IF I was not the one to rearrange the address book pages,
THEN there is a poltergeist in my house.

I call him Pookie, and he is the first of the new zombies.