More About Ghosts and Goblins in Montreal

OK, so really I need to call Sprint and deal with the fact that they have once again screwed up the bill (in their favor, of course) but I HATE dealing with that crap, and I always end up yelling at someone working in the Philippines for two bucks an hour and then I feel guilty and exhausted. So here's my solution: procrastinate!

Sometimes procrastination isn't all bad. It can get you to take care of other stuff, like cleaning out the microwave, waxing your floors, enrolling in online banking--all pretty essential to modern living. Argh.......

So before I take a shower, bake some cookies, sort out my old files and practice my guitar (I am now ONE PERCENT BETTER than I was 6 weeks ago, haha!) in lieu of screaming at "Brittany" in the Philippines, I thought in honor of Friday the 13th, I'd write a little bit more about the ghosts I lived with in Montreal.

The first one, who was there most frequently, I will call Zachary. His story is in my blog about Cambridge Clones. So I won't repeat everything about him--but maybe just one anecdote about something funny that he did.

The second ghost, who I really don't WANT to give a name, hung out in the bathroom. Sometimes he would leave drops of blood in the sink (SERIOUSLY! No idea where that came from!) and more often, he would turn on the water in the bathtub. So of course, I had the bathtub fixture checked, and there was nothing wrong with it.

After living with him for a long time (I stayed in that place for 15 years!), I found out that someone had actually died in the bathroom, long ago. Apparently he had a heart attack and was calling out for help, but the insane family living there (relatives of the insane family who currently owned the place) ignored him, and he died.

Knowing the insane landlords (the Goldbergs, whose son had actually killed his own father but never been charged--true to Montreal justice, the case didn't proceed, because after the father died of a severe beating, the judge dismissed the case for lack of a witness!!!) I figure there is much more to that story, but honestly, did I want to know what it was? Not really.

OK so there may have been a third ghost, but I don't want to talk about that at all right now, because he was waayyyy too scary, if he existed.

Instead, let me finish this segment of my procrastination vacation with the anecdote about Zach.

At the back of my apartment (it was the third/top floor of a triplex in the Plateau area, not far from Mount Royal Park) was a room we used as a study. One day at about 5 p.m. I was in that room writing, with the door closed. I heard the front door of the apartment open, someone walk up the steps, through the living room and hall and into the kitchen, which was right next to the study.

I figured it was my roommate Karen, so I kept working. Karen (or so I thought) banged around with pots and pans, so I figured she was making something for supper. But after a few minutes, the banging stopped, and I heard the person walk back through the apartment and out the front door. I thought it was a little odd, but maybe Karen changed her mind and decided to eat at the Souvlaki joint on the corner instead?

Twenty minutes later I thought that was a good idea--great Souvlakis, and I was hungry. So I walked over to the resto, and sure enough, there was Karen, sitting there enjoying a plate of chicken kebob, rice and salad. It looked good.

I sat down with her. "Hey Karen, so you decided not to cook supper at home tonight?"

Karen looked completely baffled. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

I told her I had heard her banging around in the kitchen while I worked on my writing in the study. She shook her head.

"I haven't been home yet. I came from downtown directly here, to eat." I didn't believe her at first, but she was adamant.

OK, so did she give keys to someone else? She swore no, and I believed her, since no one had ever just walked into the place before, and she had been living there for four months. AND, because my landlord and family were so insane, I had secretly changed the locks without telling them and NOT given them a key. Not legal, I know, but I didn't care. They were truly dangerous.

Oh well, so I ordered a Souvlaki sandwich and figured hmmm, strange, but...

Well, so a couple weeks later I was sitting in the same restaurant about the same time, and who walked in but Karen.

We had the SAME conversation again, only this time she thought it was ME who came home, rattled pots around and then left. But, like Karen the previous time, I had gone to the restaurant directly from a Spanish class downtown.

So Zach had a sense of humor, I guess. Or maybe it was his wife? One previous roommate claimed to have seen both Zach and a woman, walking arm and arm down the stairs. So maybe Zach's wife Cecily came home to cook a nice meal for him, and then went out to get molasses to make cookies?

Whoever it was sounded a bit annoyed. Probably thought the kitchen wasn't clean enough, cuz it never was. I only started cleaning more after I did Vipassana meditation and heard the birds chatting, but that's another story.