Mr. Hot and I just got back from seeing this movie. It is truly vintage Stephen King. I’ve always been a huge fan, although my tastes tend to run more to “The Stand” and “Carrie” than those stories with true ghosties. It’s his ability to show the movement from utterly sane to completely fucking insane - using words. What a gift.

There was one time, and one time only, that I came close to believing that something truly weird was happening that couldn’t be explained rationally. I still don’t know what the explanation is/was, but time has provided the distance so that I no longer sit and ponder it. Nor do I have to ask people what they think happened - but after today’s screening, I think I’ll go ahead and scribe it for posterity.

This is a true story. It did happen. I have witnesses. Of course, they’re probably laughing too hard to actually repeat it.

---

Sometime around early November, 2003, I was working on a training program for
our organization. It was a course on processes and procedures that needed to be
completed by all of the new “application support specialists” who were hired to
report to me and my two cohorts. We were spending a lot of time working directly
with our training director, Michelle.

Michelle and I needed to coordinate the schedules to accomodate 185 people, in 4 different states, so we were working closely together and on the phone to each other constantly. As usual though, there were times when those calls came at an inopportune time and went to our friend, Voicemail. Generally, the messages went something like this - “Hey, listen, it’s me. I’ll buy you an Appletini if we can start that class at 9:00 a.m. instead of 8:00 a.m. because I’ve got to meet with so-and-so at 7:30 and there’s no way I can face that and then 30 people without a cup of coffee or
12.”

or

“Okay, so I can’t make the 5:45 flight out of New York to get to Detroit the night before, so if we can move the class to the next day, I promise I’ll take you out for Margaritas after.” (Yes, there were lots of bribes that were paid off, not in greenbacks, but green liquor.)

Anyway, message that Voicemail passed along garnered a return call while I was out of the office running an errand - I think I was picking up missing ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner - just as a reference to the timing here. As I answered my cell, Michelle greeted me with “So, didn’t you get my page? I paged you earlier to talk about the Troy class.” This was, by the way, pre-Blackberry and I still had my old two-way pager and a separate cell phone. I apologized; we worked everything out (while I was, undoubtedly adding another bottle of wine to my cart and sampling the cheese cubes put out by the deli) and went on our merry ways. The call was about the shipment of the binders we were going to use to house the multitude of very boring important things that needed to be taught.

Binders that never showed up at the office. That fell into a deep, dark, black hole apparently, as the shipper claims they were sent, but no record of them having been delivered, signed for, accepted. (do do do do - think theme from Twilight Zone, it’s a little hard to come across through this browser)

Several months later (March? April? around Easter, 2004), long after the classes were completed, and the binders forgotten, I walked into my cubicle and there sat a
huge box. I opened it up, and there were the freakin binders. Immediately, I picked up my phone and called Michelle. She was out of the office. I told her voicemail - “Call me. I’ll buy you a cosmopolitan if you can figure out what just showed up at my desk.” Since she was on vacation I didn’t figure I’d hear from her for a while, but we’d have a laugh.

That night, I was sound asleep, and my pager went off. I grabbed it off the nightstand and blearily tried to read it. I tried again with glasses this time. Heck, it was 3 am, and I can barely see during daylight hours.

This was the message. “Call me when you get a chance. Michelle.” And, it was dated Nov 26, 2003. FIVE months earlier. When she had called me to discuss the ordering of the binders. The binders that finally showed up that day.

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So, that was my brief and only experience with the supernatural. Except: This Post? When I said that they moved my room? I found that little folder that they give you with your key in it. When you check in? Okay. This is the picture I took of it for you. Seriously. Spooky.

—- I’m not rethinking my non-belief in the supernatural, but I can’t pretend that I am really, really, glad that the 14th floor isn’t a smoking floor. —-