Ghosts...

We have a friend who asked us to go on a ghost tour. I'm into spooky stories, but I have to admit, I am not a believer in ghosts. But, it sounded fun.

We met our ghost tour leader on the somewhat crumbling steps of the local Elk's Lodge. The tour guide, clad in a T-shirt which said, Paranormal Investigator, started the tour with some somewhat glossed over history of the local area. I was a bit concerned for the rest of the tour.

We proceeded to walk through the town's downtown, the guide telling us about the different buildings people had probably died in and somewhat muddled stories of famous murders. She made sure to tell us which buildings her and her team (which I finally realized meant her paranormal investigation team) had personally investigated. I had a lot of questions about that, as I thought there were probably some good stories in there, but she never talked about any of that. She would return to her partial tellings of probable deaths in buildings she hadn't yet gotten to investigate.

At some point, my desire for a strong narrative caused me to lose interest in the tour, and I proceeded to watch college kids ride rental scooters like total assholes the wrong way on the main road. At one point, man ran up to my husband and pushed his face inches from my husband's.

"You'd better be careful!" the guy, who was wearing a clean T-shirt and looked like he might have been an accountant by day, "This tour ends up at the gay bar!"

Unsure if that was an endorsement or a threat, my husband shrugged, and the two people I didn't know on the tour cast knowing glances at each other and peeled off the tour and booked it in the opposite direction.

At some point, I was told that a long gone furniture store once made coffins, that there was a second story opera house that never hosted an opera but became the offices for the fire department, and that just last week, the guide and her daughter had seen a ghost in the upstairs window of a sickeningly modern-looking building.

I leaned into one of my friends, who clearly did not believe in ghosts. "This lady is seeing ghosts everywhere. I've never seen one. Is it that my mind isn't open enough?"

We were walking past the gay bar, which the guide didn't even look at, despite the the warning from the probably high, balding accountant. My friend pointed at the bar and said, "We could check out what's going on in there. Maybe that will be mind opening."

We looked in the door. The bar wasn't hoping. In fact, it all looked a little sad. We opted to continue with the tour, and I realized, I had no idea what time it was. I could have been out there for twenty seconds or a hundred years. I got a little scared. Losing time like that actually was spooky.

We made it to a random street corner and the guide began a story about a local hand lotion but somehow the story transitioned to one about dresses made out of egg shells and fish, and I wondered if in fact, I had died because I had no idea what we were talking about.

Then the tour was over. A few of my friends immediately bailed, and the rest of us followed another of our friends to look at a rock which had reportedly been carved on by a old-timey local guy who's legend in the local community. The rock wasn't there. We ended up at a bar that was supposed to serve hot dogs, but didn't?

Eventually, my husband and I drove home, agreeing that the tour guide hadn't had a good mastery of the narrative art, but we'd had fun with our friends. We also agreed, we still did not believe in ghosts.

When we got to our house, my husband was unlocking the door, and through the window I could see the corner lamp was on. It wasn't one we used often. I said, "It was nice of you to leave the lamp on for the cats."

He finally got the door open. "I didn't leave the lamp on," he said.

"But it's on. And I didn't turn it on."

And it was on.

"Maybe it's a ghost!" my husband cried.

The thing is, is that our security cam didn't turn on like it usually does when we left the house, so I had turned it on from my phone while we were in town. My husband checked the footage, and the lamp was on when the feed turned on, but we have no evidence of what happened before the footage started. We also don't know why it didn't turn on.

Maybe I don't need to go on a tour to find the ghosts. Maybe they've been right in front of me the whole time.

Or maybe my cats turned on the light. Honestly, I'm leaning toward that. And that is probably why I never see any ghosts.