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[friday]

September 15, 2012

My car is haunted.

So, I had a bit of a meltdown on the way home from work the other night.

Here’s how it all went down:

It’s late, sometime after 11 p.m. I’m driving down Main Street when I hear a faint voice murmuring over the sound of rain pounding the windshield. I can’t make out actual words, I can just hear what sounds like someone talking. I think the radio must be on, so I reach over to turn it off. It’s not on.

This is the point where I got only slightly weirded out.

I can’t hear it anymore, so I just keep driving and thinking I’m a nut case. As I approach my next turn a few blocks later, I hear the voice again. I think my iPod must be on in my purse. At the stoplight, I feel around

in the dark to find it. It isn’t there. I must’ve left it at the office. So, I guess it’s not my iPod. Maybe it’s my phone. Nope.

This is the point where I became officially weirded out and approached the border of “Panic Land.”

The light changes and I keep driving. After another couple blocks, I hear it again. My new guess is: it’s the windshield wipers. They’re going so fast they’re making more noise than normal, I tell myself. So, I pull over to turn them off to see if I can still hear the voice. Now that I’m listening so intently, I can’t hear it anymore, but I can tell it’s not the wipers.

This is the point where I started to entertain the idea the voice was paranormal; thus, completing my journey into “Panic Land.”

After a quick glance in the back seat to make sure I was in fact alone, I pull back onto the roadway and continue driving. I hadn’t heard the voice when I was stopped, so I thought maybe a tire had been making a weird noise. At the next stop sign, I hear the noise while I’m not moving. Great, there goes the tire theory.

This is the point where I became convinced there was a ghost in my car.

Grasping at any straws to dispel the belief I’m in the middle of a haunting, I think maybe there’s something or someone in the trunk. Still a far cry from home and now scared enough to investigate this new theory, despite the pouring rain, I pull into a parking lot. I jumped out as fast as I can to see if there’s someone in the trunk. Nothing, so I jumped back in. Now that I’m scared and wet, I sit in the parking lot for a while, just listening. After a few minutes of nothing happening, I decide to drive home as fast as possible and get out of my possessed car.

This is the point where I realized I hadn’t planned for what I would have done had there actually been someone in the trunk.

I pull out of the parking lot and I instantly hear it again. This time, I nearly scream, “Who’s there?!”

Of course, thank goodness, no one answered. Another few blocks, I hear it again. But this time, I was able to make out a couple words: “the next right.” That’s weird, I thought. Why would a ghost say that? Another block and it hits me. It’s Kate! My stupid GPS was turned on in the center console compartment.

This is the point where I felt like a complete idiot.

— Misty Knisely, interim [friday] editor / afraid of “ghosts."

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