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What is “paranormal” activity? The dictionary definition is anything that is supernatural. In movies, paranormal activity usually involves apparitions from the spirit world, commonly called ghosts. Spirits can be either evil or benign or, as in the case of Casper the Friendly Ghost, friendly.
The question for today is: If paranormal activity happens often enough, can it really be supernatural or does it become natural? We know in the case of abnormal activity, if it happens often enough it becomes normal. For example, the infidelity of politicians or golfers can no longer be considered abnormal. This is not an idle question, my friends. Turn on the TV or go to the movies and the subject of spirits and haunted houses comes up pretty frequently.
You can always tell the difference between evil and benign spirits. Let’s say you forget about an Italian hoagie on the kitchen table and go to bed. The benign spirit removes the onions and eats the hoagie (there is nothing worse in the spirit world than a ghost with onion breath). The evil spirit will use the hoagie to club you into a bloody pulp and the killing will wind up on “20/20.”
Spirits throughout history often have been portrayed wearing a sheet with holes cut out for the eyes. Question: If you are a ghost, do you really need eyeholes? Ghosts often are mistaken for members of the Ku Klux Klan. The easiest way to distinguish a Klan member from a ghost is the Klan only haunts African-Americans, Jews and Catholics. Also, ghosts normally don’t burn a cross on your lawn.
I have always wondered if ghosts wash their own sheets or send them out. Do they have a change of sheet? Do the better-dressed ghosts wear designer sheets? If you think about it, there has never been a ghost, to my knowledge, with a food stain on its sheet. Sloppy eater that I am, I find this little detail just a bit curious.
In today’s world, spirits are usually invisible, except in remakes of “A Christmas Carol.” Ghosts, for some unknown reason, carry chains. They have this annoying habit of rattling them in the middle of the night during the workweek. The least a ghost can do is wait for the weekend when you can sleep in.
My personal theory about the chain-rattling is spirits are notoriously narcissistic and always crave attention. Being invisible, you have to be noisy for people to pay attention to you. Perhaps the chains are a form of haute couture in the spirit world. Isn’t there a better alternative? Maybe they received a gift certificate to Home Depot. Couldn’t ghosts simply use the leftover noisemakers from New Year’s Eve?
My wife has her own theory. She believes the chains are a kind of musical instrument in the spirit world. Don’t think my wife is a bit odd, but she also thinks each ghost has its own theme song. She swears the one haunting our home is partial to “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” Maybe that’s why she affectionately calls it Jerry Lee Lewis and keeps our 12-year-old granddaughter away from it.
For some reason, the spirit world cannot be captured in high-definition. The people who shoot it always use a handheld camera that shakes quite a bit. There is a feeling in Hollywood nothing is quite as scary as a badly lit video shot with a shaky hand and populated by unknown actors or hysterical non-actors.
My feeling is they hire a camera operator who suffers from St. Vitus’ dance. Remember when your mother told you if you held in your urine, you would get St. Vitus’ dance? On second thought, perhaps that was only my mother. It’s the only dance step I ever learned. Maybe St. Vitus was the patron saint of kids who didn’t want to take time to go to the bathroom.
Getting back to why spirits only haunt us in the middle of the night. My exhaustive research on the subject is spirits like to sleep late and stay up late. Paranormally speaking, ghosts are not ready to haunt until “Jimmy Kimmel Live” is over.
In case you haven’t noticed, spirits rarely haunt single men — Scrooge being the notable exception. Spirits take great joy ruining a couple’s sex life. Between the “Late Show with David Letterman” and ghosts, it’s a wonder anyone has sex anymore.
Paranormal investigators never doubt spirits are real. They cite a drop in temperature as evidence of a haunting in progress. The rest of us call a plumber to check a malfunctioning heater.
Polls show most Americans believe in ghosts with roughly the same enthusiasm they usually reserve for tax cuts for themselves. Americans also believe Scrooge and Republicans that are willing to compromise also are real.
Actually, Scrooge will be appearing with Barbara Walters before next Christmas, at which time he will be brought to tears when she discloses his generous donations are tied to contributions being tax-deductible.
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