Ooh, spooky etc.
I actually have quite a few stories I could post on here, but, being fairly skeptical/cynical myself, I don't want to appear like a complete arse, so I'll just tell this one.

Back in the early 90's my parents moved from London to a rural area. They often asked me to look after their house while for them whilst they were on holiday etc.

It was a fairly big, echoey place, overlooked by thickly wooded hills, that themselves are full of old legends about dark deeds and the like.

Mostly, though, I enjoyed having a place to myself for a couple of weeks to use as a base for all kind of late teens/early 20's misbehavoir.

Anyway, during one week-long house sitting, I bought a friend up with me. He isn't much of a drinker so instead of going to the local pubs and making hushed 'Deliverance' jokes whilst looking at the locals, we stayed in most nights.

One night, in a fit of sobriety, we decided to dim the lights and play cards. It was fairly late and the weather outside was the definition of 'pathetic fallacy', Cold, windy, howly, thundery, lighningy and all the other appropriately spooky things.

This lead to us telling ghost stories as we played Rummy. (Two twenty year old, single chaps staying in playing rummy? Could go some way to explaining the sexual famine I experienced for most of my youth.)

These stories became the inevitable kinda one-upmanship thing, y'know, "Oh, you think that's scary? Well, listen to this one!" Even though we're both quite big, logical chaps, this did have the effect of slightly unnerving both of us.

One of us mentioned how the ace of spades had apparently started of as a tarot card for death or misfortune. We started asking the cards questions.

As in: "Will girlX say yes if I ask her out?"

We would then both take a card from the pack. Ace being high, two being low, the person asking the question wanting the highest, therefore getting a positive awnser.

This went on for some time, concurrent with the 'Ace of Spades is eeeeeevil' conversation.

Eventually, for self amusement, I got my friend to shuffle the deck, put 'em down in front of me, then said:

"If Satan is in the room, it will be the Ace of Spades." I say, picking a random card.

Well, shave my legs, and call me Julie...

It was the Ace of Spades.

Ha ha ha, etc. Being rational types, we said it was a 1 in 52 chance, so we shuffled, and went again.

"If Satan is here, watching us right now, it will be the Ace Of Spades..."

Shitknobs. You guessed it. It was.

I got my friend to shuffle again, watching him closer than you would Gary Glitter in Toys 'R' Us. My chum is a guy who, for a living, prods cables into things whilst eating pasties. If he had developed some kind of David Blaine-esque card sharkery skills it would have suprised me hugely.

Cards shuffled, we went again. His turn.

"If Satan wants my soul, it will be the Ace of Spades."

It wasn't.

Cards shuffled.

I ask the same question...

It was.

Arse.

Cards shuffled, I go again.

Three more times. Each time with a fresh shuffle. Each time the Ace of Spades.

Buttered Feck! I'm doomed!

I mentally kept flashing to that rather scary scene in the first 'Evil Dead' where the woman reads aloud the cards the other girl is holding before turning into one of the demons. This was enough, I broke the mood and turned up the lights, actually more shaken than I would admit.

many years later, 3 weeks ago, in fact. Mrs Spicious and I go to our local pub, we see that their latest product promotion is free packs of cards left in ashtrays for people to play with. A picture of the booze available printed on each card. Nifty, I think, and we start playing a few games of Rummy. (Hey, at least being naked in her company is fun). After a few rounds, I mention the above story...

Sure enough, it happens again. Only twice in a row this time though. Hopefully, the older and flabbier I get, the less appealing I am to the dark one.

Well, there ya go. I know the above can probably all be explained by some kind of psychological 'hot carding' or something, but it is a little troubling at the time. And also makes me wonder if anything good I do is worthwhile if the end result is the same. Oh well, I might go out and punch someone for no reason.

Length? Girth? Let's hope you can take it with you, eh?
( sir_spicious2000 Crap I've watched: www.filmplop.blogspot.com/, Fri 21 Apr 2006, 13:36, Reply)