The Strangest Thing that’s ever Happened to Me

I am a rather boring person. I’ve never been anywhere, I’ve never done anything. Random trips to Costco with my twin get me really pumped. I don’t even have a Costco card, I just like looking at the huge stacks of food and imagining that someday I might buy them. So yeah…I don’t have a lot to offer in terms of anecdotes. And yet…I have a blog for some reason?

Hm.

Well, after that exciting build up, I’m going to tell you the most interesting story I have in my arsenal. That’s right, I’m peaking early. After this, my blog will only be left with stories of microwave dinner reviews and rants about how the chip companies are getting stingier and stingier. Aren’t you excited? But in the meantime, prepare yourself for the very best I have to offer.

Let’s do this.

Ok, so one thing you should know about me is that I’m a massive horror fan. I always have been, as long as I can remember. I used to read scary stories, freak myself out, and then have nightmares in which my dad would have to half-assedly calm my fears in the middle of the night, assuring me that the skull I saw in my closet was actually a plastic target bag or that the dream I had in which a man made entirely of kielbasa sausages chased me around trying to transform me into another sausage person, was in fact, ridiculous.

So yeah. Horror, horror, everything horror. Unfortunately, my twin was the opposite. I rarely got to watch what I wanted to. Like, Ghost and Mr. Chicken, or the cartoon version of Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I think the last time I actually got to watch that was when my brother accidentally pushed me into the counter and I gashed my head and thought I was dying. My mother, eager to quell my screams and sobs said I could choose dinner and the movie. I chose waffles and Sleepy Hollow, and decided it was well worth the head injury.

(It was actually a pretty funny sequence of events. I put my hand on my head, it was covered in blood, I screamed and my twin went around screeching at my brother, “You’ve killed her! You’ve killed her! You’re a murderer!!!” Ah….memories.)

Eventually, when I got married and moved out, I got to watch actual scary movies. There was no pansy twin to veto my choices anymore. I could watch real horror where the ghost didn’t turn out to be a human bad guy out to pester Don Knotts. No Scooby Doo fake out shit here. The ghosts in these movies were real and they wanted your mother-fucking soul.

I loved it.

So, one day my husband and I decided to rent a movie called White Noise. Now, I’ve seen a lot of horror movies in my day. Good ones, bad ones, forgettable ones. This was a little bit of all three. It has Michael Keaton and has an IMDB score of 5.5 out of 10, so nothing too monumental in terms of quality. I don’t remember the plot very well but I remember it had a good build up but fell short at the end, whatever the hell the ending was. This was about 11 years ago. Still, I do remember a few things.

First off, for the 2.3 of you who don’t know what white noise is, in terms of horror, it’s the theory that you can hear dead people through the static in TVs, radios, blah blah blah. Think of the movie Poltergeist. I’ve always found that concept scary. But then, I find everything scary.

So, in the movie, Michael Keaton’s wife dies. When she dies, if memory serves, the clock stops. It’s either 2:30 or 3 a.m. or something like that. Who the fuck knows. Let’s say 2:30. It’s somewhat of a noted thing, in the film. Then, throughout the movie, TVs and radios and shit have static and spooky voices happen, as one would expect. I do remember getting so freaked out by a scene that I screamed while watching it. Unfortunately, that is not uncommon with me. I get REALLY into movies. My husband puts up with a lot. I remember he had to tell me to calm down because at the time we were living in a townhouse and had neighbors we didn’t want to think were witnessing a murder. I did, indeed, shush.

Movie ends. Go to bed. Life seems normal.

Wake up the next morning. Stumble into the kitchen. Glance at the clock.

The fucking clock hand was stuck at 2:29 a.m. But not just stuck. No. It was twitching. The minute hand was in spasms, trying to get to 2:30. It was really freaky, never seen anything like it. Just this mad, aggressive attempt over and over and over to get at 2:30, which, as you may recall, was the time in the movie the dude’s wife died.

So that was fun.

Changed the battery, thought it was a weird coincidence, went about my day.

Later, in the bedroom, I’m folding laundry and my freaking radio alarm clock starts having random static and voices go through it! I kid you not. Couldn’t make out what the voices said, but it obviously scared the hell out of me. Especially since the radio was not on and it’s NEVER done it before or since, and yes, I still use that thing to this day.

Just to recap. Death clock. White noise on the radio. Both the very next day from watching this movie.

Weirded out yet? It gets better.

During this time in my life, my husband and I used to play this online video game thing with our friend, called Dungeon Fighter Online. We played it every Sunday and it was great fun. Interesting thing about this game. Hundreds of people would play it at the same time, and in certain game areas it would be crowded with people’s characters, commenting to each other and such. You’d also see what other players were doing, like drawing items out of chests, etc. It would announce it on the screen so it was just a jumble of text all over and could get quite chaotic.

Well, we’re waiting around in this common area, trying to coordinate the next level we wanted to enter together, and on the screen pops up the following:

“White Noise pulled a Ms. Miffed out of a vase.”

Only, of course it didn’t say, “Ms. Miffed.” It said my fucking first name.

Add to the fact that my name is fairly uncommon, that only made it that much freakier. I’ve seriously only run across about 10 other people in my entire existence with my same name. Plus, you know, there was the whole fucking extremely random and unexplained “white noise” part, perfectly colliding into the freaky finale that the day needed to scar me for life.

Well, there you have it.

That’s my story. The most interesting tidbit I will ever have to offer you. The universe aligned to prank me that one day and then resumed its boring course of Costco trips and dwindling bagged chip-to-air ratios. Life has been meh, ever since.

You know what? I think I’m ok with that.