Odds & Ends

Although the Christmas season is upon us, we all need a few strange tales to add to our lives, no matter what time of the year it is. Nobody relishes the creepy and macabre quite like I do. I revel in it. So how about a little something to make you go hmmmm? These are just a few odd stories from my repertoire.

This first story comes from my best friend of almost 30 years. Gosh, time does fly. We’ve gone all the way from Howard Jones to Adele together. That’s trust.  I’m sure she won’t mind being included in my cheap thrills stories so here goes. Years ago… I mean, years and years ago, when she was only a few years old, she was admitted to the hospital with a hernia. How a 3 or 4 year old get’s a hernia, I will never know but that’s beside the point. After surgery, she was recuperating in the hospital. She woke up from her nap and saw all the nurses standing over someone in the next bed doing something to them. She was curious as to what was going on but the nurses tried to talk her into going back to bed. Not likely. Who wants to go to sleep when there is probably someone dying in the bed next to you? Her mom told me when she went to visit my friend in the hospital, she told her about some lady in a bag who was talking to her. This gives me the chills just to think about. I wonder what was said. She doesn’t remember but maybe that’s a good thing.

When we were both teenagers we did a lot of babysitting between us. Well, she was on her way to a gig and got an early start for some reason. I have never known her to be early but there you have it. Since she had time to kill, she decided to go into a 7/11 to get an ICEE and some gum. Me and her mother both questioned this since that place had been boarded up for years. Only she could go to a place that’s no longer in business. She swears up and down there was a little gay guy and a black girl working there, which does make for a good comedy duo but I digress. Well, the next day, out of curiosity, she drove by there and it was boarded up again with no signs of anything having gone on at all. The ‘store’ seems to have opened just for her. I wonder if she was the only customer. Was it a time slip perhaps? Was she entertaining angels unaware or vice-versa? Some things on this earth, we are just not privy too.

I remember as a 19 year old who liked to hangout at the clubs in downtown Shreveport, it was necessary to pass by the cemetery on Texas Street to get there. It was very close to Municipal Auditorium, a place that is majorly haunted. Anytime I passed it there would be interference in the radio or tape I was listening to. Yes, I said tape. I’m aware that his ages me. I remember going with a friend past the cemetery with our Depeche Mode tape in the stereo. All of a sudden, the music stopped and we could hear voices in place of the music but we couldn’t make out what they were saying. We drove around it where it intensified then the tape popped out all together. It just freaked us out. Needless to say, we split.

In another instance, I was in my car, talking to my same friend who had the hernia. We were on our way back from The Capri, such a classy establishment. We were stopped at a red light close to the same cemetery. I was telling her something then a male voice cut in on the radio, a little staticy but very loud and clear, as a response to what I was saying. Of course, we were stunned. That had never happened before or since. Thank God. Talk about Big Brother. It still gives me the willies.

Well, I do hope you’ve enjoyed these little tidbits as much as I liked telling them. Now that I have the chills reliving these stories, I will try to sleep now. The operative word here is ‘try’. Guten Nacht