There has been an interesting new development at The Hellhole (the actual one, I mean, not here at the virtual one). A few nights ago, we were all tucked snugly into bed enjoying a blissful sleep when we were awakened at about 3AM by a loud, unidentifiable crash. As Man of the House, Alan got up to investigate while I rearranged covers, made sure a weapon was handy by in case the crash turned out to be intruder-related, and grumbled. Heavy on the grumbling part - I hate being awakened from a nice comfy sleep.

After making his rounds, Alan returned to report nothing readily observable amiss, so we went back to sleep. The next morning, we found that a row of old glass bottles I keep on the windowsill above the kitchen sink had been disturbed. You can get an idea of what I'm writing about from this picture, although that giant soup-pot doesn't live on the counter. The odd thing was that every other bottle had been toppled over, along with the liquid soap dispenser. The cordial glasses and the green round bottle were standing in their usual spots.

We had turned the dishwasher on before bedtime, but it is fairly new and hardly vibrates at all, certainly not enough to topple things off the windowsill - even so, its cycle would have finished well before 3AM. The cat was on the bed, sound asleep; I'm certain of this because I sleep curled on my side and he sleeps in the bend of my knees. He didn't even alert to the clatter and kept snoring gently as Alan patrolled, so I know he'd been there a while. Moreover, he almost never gets up on counters and even if he did, it would take a degree of forethought and footwork that I'm not certain he possesses (though he does possess the cunning) to topple only every other bottle (plus the soap dispenser).

It is obvious that we have a poltergeist.

I was quite pleased by this news, though Alan was far less impressed. For someone who loves supernatural and/or scary novels, he is quite repulsed by any hint of actual real-world spookiness. For example, I want to visit Savannah and stay in the haunted room at the 17Hundred90 Inn, but when I suggested it, you'd have thought I'd asked him to eat goat poo with a side of hamster entrails. Garnished with artichokes.

I, on the other hand, welcome our poltergeist. It is comforting to know that there is now a reasonable, logical explanation for things such as finding one sock, freshly laundered and folded, placed neatly in the refrigerator instead of the sock drawer, or noticing that my dirty clothes have somehow ended up in the bathroom trash can rather than the clothes hamper, or finding a used pizza pan replaced in the oven rather than the aforementioned dishwasher. It's nice to know that it's the poltergeist doing such things. The alternative - that I might on occasion be an absentminded doofus - is too terrible to contemplate. Anyway, since I had nothing to do with the alternating bottle-toppling, it's obvious that I had nothing to do with the other things, either.

It's a poltergeist. I'll let you know if any of us should get sucked into the television. Doubtful, however, since I have been unable to determine what the poltergeist has done with the remote control. I'm going to check the 'fridge.