A Ghost Story (the first)

Bonus post for today:

Anyone who knows me, knows that I've always loved a good ghost story. Telling 'em, listening to 'em, it's all good. I've lived in quite a few haunted places over the course of my life -- I don't think I'm special or anything... but I have certainly moved a whole bunch... My high ghost percentage probably has to do with this fact more than anything else: the law of averages. Living in many places gives you more chances to end up in a weird one.

I also have to say before I relate the most recent occurrence, I'm not even sure if I actually believe in ghosts. How's that, you ask? I dunno. What I do know is that weird things can happen and often there are no explanations.

Here's my story: I currently live in a sprawling penthouse apartment in an old pre-war building in Brooklyn, NY. No, I'm not rich. I live in the eensy-weensy maid's quarters just off the smallish kitchen. Ah, the writer's life...

My roommate, who owns the place, has been out of town for awhile and I've been alone there. In some of the other places I've lived, I've definitely felt something strange right off the bat. But in the almost 2 years I've lived in Brooklyn, I haven't really noticed anything weird, even after I learned that the guy who built the building jumped off the roof after it opened. That's right, he might have leaped from the ledge just outside my bedroom window. But if his ghost haunts my building, he's not hanging around the roof.

Anyway, this past week, I was in the kitchen late at night, getting something from the fridge, I don't remember what. I went to close the refrigerator door, and for some reason, it bumped back open. I reached forward to close it again. At that moment, I very clearly heard a female voice next to me say, "Pardon me."

Mm-hm. Hallucination you ask? A noisy next door neighbor? Who knows. I'm going to go with the maid who's room I now inhabit. If I'm living with her ghost, at least she's polite!

Cheers...