Gold-Plated Toilets

The Latest News From Jackson Press -

“Ghost Hunters” is back on the air! Yay!

Just when you thought television was dead (with the exception of “Battlestar Galactica” and “Friday Night Lights”), back comes “Ghost Hunters”, further reinforcing our belief in ghosts here at Jackson Acre.

n fact, the wife and I think we had our own personal encounter with a ghost here at Jackson Acre the other night. The kids were in bed and we were in the family room watching “American Idol” when we both heard what sounded like a kitchen chair scraping across the floor, as if someone - or something - had bumped into it and moved it out of their way.

“Did you hear that?”

“Yeah, what was it? Is one of the kids up?”

I looked into the kitchen, waiting for one of my children to come into view, probably wanting a drink of juice or a cookie or something. You know, something sugary right after brushing one’s teeth right before bed.

No children stepped into view.

I got up and walked into the kitchen, checking to see if a child was hiding next to the fridge, screwing with their parents. Nothing. So then I tried to figure out which chair I thought I heard move. We have six chairs and all of them made the same chair-leg-on-floor scraping noise. So much for that theory.

“You heard a chair move, right?”

“Yeah, is one of the kids up?”

“No.”

“Hmmm, must be Ace.”

And with that, my wife pins our entire supernatural personal experience on the ghost of our sixteen-year-old border collie mix, Ace, who died two years ago. And as he got older and feebler, Ace occasionally bumped into furniture, like kitchen chairs. And being a border collie, which is a herding breed used to herd sheep, cattle, children (you know, anything that herds), Ace always had this intense need to keep track of everyone in the house. So he’d cruise from room to room, making sure he knew where everyone was at, keeping track of his herd.

I guess Ace’s still here, keeping an eye on us.

At least that’s what we told the kids. The ghost of old Ace isn’t quite as scary as the ghost of some stranger who died in your home at some point in the past.

Yeah, that’s a pretty freaky thought!

Wondering if ghosts count as dependants on my taxes …