Right then, one more.
(wavy lines)

///////////////////
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
///////////////////
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Back many years ago when Nurse Ratched and I were still young and somewhat happy, we used to visit her parents a fair bit as one does when they're young and happily married. Her parents lived in a single story house on a hill that had been a farm before heart attacks forced Erle to give up farming.

Erle had a tendency to be a miserable old git at times, and had a pretty bad drinking problem. He'd usually keep it under control while we were there, but I saw him truly drunk off his ass more than a few times. But even sober he was often a bit of a bastard.

Being an alcoholic, his sleep schedule was pretty erratic, and it was common for him to be awake at two in the morning, smoking unfiltered cigarettes and listening to AM talk radio at the kitchen table. There were many times when I woke in the night to go to the bathroom and heard him in there, the radio blathering on about something as he hacked in that deep smoker's cough that he had.

We were with him on the day he died, as it happens- we met up for a Fireman's Field Day and brought along the boys, who were not quite toddlers at that point. We had a very nice day together, then Nurse Ratched and I went home while they went back to theirs. When they got home he was feeling tired, so he sat to watch TV for a bit, then had a massive coronary on the couch and was dead in seconds.

That was in late 1991.

////////////////////
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
////////////////////
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

My three kids, now aged about 12, 11 and 9, go to visit their grandmother during the summer with their mother. As there are only two actual bedrooms in the house, the boys sleep in what used to be Erle's office and my daughter sleeps on the couch in the living room.

When they come back a week later, the kids come over to my place (by now Nurse Ratched and I were divorced) and I ask them how the visit was. They all flatly refuse to go back there to stay ever again. I found this surprising, as their grandmother is a very sweet and nurturing person who invariably showers kids with attention and cookies and whatnot. But it wasn't an issue with Grandma, or anything like that- it was the sounds from the kitchen in the night.

They took turns describing it- the sound of a radio being on, someone opening cupboards and taking out dishes, footsteps, an occasional deep hacking cough, but when they went to the kitchen no one was there and the radio was off.

I had never described Erle's habits to them.

Even now (ages 21, 20 and 18) they refuse to stay in that house.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 8 Apr 2011, 15:17, 2 replies)

*click* for the wavy lines
liked the ghost story too
( brown-wings Made with three kinds of butter, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 15:20, closed)

Boink!!
Yeah, have a click, nice tale...
(Rsoles, Fri 8 Apr 2011, 23:39, closed)