We bought a ghost!!!
by Steven R. Sztabor
“Going once, going twice, SOLD, to the lady in the front for $2.00.” Well that’s how my friend George and his mom, Louise, bought their first ghost. Actually it wasn’t a ghost that they purchased, but a small wooden jewelry box that she had fancied at an estate auction in the fall of 1964. The box itself wasn’t much to look at. It was kind of scratched and the hinges were loose, nonetheless, there went the new owner of the box, followed by George and I. Little did we know what would happen next.
When Louise got home she cleaned the box and set it on her bureau in the bedroom. Moments later there was a slamming sound that came from her room. We all went to see if we could find the source of the banging. Looking around the room briefly, we couldn’t find anything out of place. So we chalked it up to something outside the house.
After settling back in the kitchen, “Bang”, there was that same slamming noise coming from the bedroom once more. This time we double timed it to her room only to find once again everything as it should be, with one exception……the little box was open! Well needless to say none of us were amused by this happening. George and I were asked by his mom to quit the practical joking. However she soon realized that we couldn’t have done anything due to the fact that we were with her when the slamming occurred.
Louise closed the lid and we left the room. Nothing else happened for the rest of the day. Ah, but night was a different thing altogether.
I came over to George’s house the next day only to find his mom in a frazzled state. She had been up all night because of the racket the box was making. At first she thought she was dreaming until she saw the lid open by itself. That was it, into the closet the box went. Poor Louise sat up in the parlor all night and waited for daylight. The box remained in the closet for about a month without a single thing happening.
Curiosity got the better of her one day and she took the box down from the closet shelf and once again placed it on her dresser. Standing in front of the mirror she began to remove her earrings and as she was doing so the lid of the little box opened. Upon seeing this she threw the earrings into the box and screamed.
The lid closed and never opened on it’s own again. Louise eventually got up the courage to retrieve her earrings and began placing some of her other jewelry in the box as well without incident.
Perhaps the former owner was pleased to see the box being used for that which it was intended in her lifetime and now in the next.