The time has officially come for me to tell you about my dearest...roommate(?) Sure, we'll call her that. It's probably the most respectful "term of endearment" that I can refer to her as, seeing as she IS (from what I've learned) the previous renter of our duplex here in OkleeHomee.
Let me explain...back it up
like a tonka truck about 4 months ago. Ryan had just moved into our duplex on a very nice side of town and my bestie, Raybay, and I were working on moving some of my furniture and things up here (the first of our several summer trips here). Right before we were set to be heading back to McKinney, I had been noticing the precious, little old lady neighbor who was always watering her yard with a little tractor-looking watering tool that I knew HAD to be from Atwoods. (Note: My Atwoods theory was proven correct a few weeks later when Ryan and I proceeded to purchase one of these tractor-sprinkler-thingies from, none other than, Atwoods itself). But that's neither here nor there. Back to my cute-lil-ole-tractor-lady neighbor. So, in order to get off on the right foot here in my new country town, I decided that it was my neighborly duty to walk my happy booty over and introduce myself! So off Raven and I go across the street in order to obtain what might possibly be the only friendship I ever have here.
At least, that was my negative attitude at the time. I'm better now! So I knock at the door and after a good 30 seconds (she seemed to move a lot faster after that tractor..oh well), but there she was. A sweet, lil-ole smiling lady came and opened the door for us.
The welcoming introduction went on as follows:
Me: "HI!! I'm your new neighbor from across the street!"
Betty: "Well HELLO there! My name's Betty!! My first husband died of a heart attack. My second husband died after a stroke. And my third husband just recently passed."
((NOTE: This is NO joke. This WAS our first spoken words to one another))
Me: *Silence...........*
"Oh......" *Thoughts in my head: THINK BRIANA THINK! How on earth do you TOP that?!?!*
"Um...Well then...My name's Bri.........................I'm from Texas!"
-------FAIL! EPIC FAIL! I guess I'm not as interesting of a person as I originally thought. Betty, by far, had me beat.
So, anywho, Betty ends up inviting us inside and, I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little hesitant considering she hadn't specified what had happened to husband #3. That remains a mystery. But the rest of the indoor conversation was filled with the typical: Weather here in OkleeHomee, jobs, yadayadayada. And then came the point in the conversation that you can almost always expect from the elderly who have been around a neighborhood for
ever a while --The Neighborhood Gossip. Betty proceeded to tell us about the people around the neighborhood (none of which was really negative, mainly just family drama that most families would probably not want dear-ole-Betty sharing with the new neighbor). But then came the part that was more interesting to me: Past residents of our duplex. The most recent was a young girl trying to work her way through school and never had the rent money to stay...hence, she's not here. But then Betty went on to tell us about the resident PRIOR to the poor school girl.
**NOTE: K, This is where it gets good!**
Betty informed me that the prior resident's name was Mary. Betty kept Mary's info short and simple. "Her name was Mary. She was an elderly lady who was a hospice patient after a few months here." Now, not much more was spoken about Mary besides this, which is probably why I didn't think anymore of it that day, nor on my long drive home, nor for a few more months until I moved here. Of course though, when you hear that someone is/was on hospice that's usually not a very good thing, huh? And I guess statistically showing, it usually doesn't end very well once being put on hospice. Nonetheless, we moved on from the topic when Raven and I realized that it was time to head back to Tejas before it got too late. I never thought much more about the convo.........................
UNTIL *
DunDunDunnnnnnnn* the morning of Thursday, August 4, 2011 (*saying dates like this always make things seem really really important, as I feel this is). This was Day 4 of my life here in Elk City. You see, the duplex has 2 full bathrooms and I took it upon myself to claim the bigger of the two. (Who wouldn't? Boys stink and I'd already spend 3 out of 4 years of college sharing a potty room with stinky boys). And I really like this bathroom. It's well lit, we've decorated it all girly and pretty, and it's clean
most of the time. So on this morning of August 4, 2011 I woke up to brush my teeth and go about my daily routine as usual. I headed to MY bathroom and turned on the light to see my round, gray, circular vanity-like, make-up mirror lying face down on my mat in front of the toilet. Because the stand on it is broken, and has been for quite a while, I always lay it face down on my bathroom counter area in order to ensure that it doesn't take a mad tumble and shatter everywhere. But it wasn't broken or cracked...I just found it strange to be there in front of the toilet seat. I certainly didn't leave it there! I left it face down on the counter the night before, as I said I always do. I picked up the mirror and simply attributed the odd mirror placement to Ryan using my bathroom without permission (and using the mirror for something that I honestly just didn't care to know or think about). I put it back on my counter FACE DOWN and went on about my day, not worried to think about it again. I ran some errands while Ryan was at work, ya know, just kinda was "shooting the bird" that day
I hope that's the saying.
(*...crap...Ryan just told me as I was editing this piece that I was WAY wrong. It's "Shooting the Breeze" and even that, he said, wouldn't make since with what I said I was doing because I wasn't carrying on a conversation with anyone. He informed me that "shooting the bird" was like flippin people off...So, to clarify, that's NOT what I was actually doing! Oh well. I'm leaving it in here for entertainment purposes*).
So it was around 4:15pm-ish, still on this day of August 4, when I returned home from the grocery store. I walked into my house and went straight to the kitchen to begin putting all the food away. Halfway through my unpacking process I heard a movement, followed by a crash. Kami was outside (my "guard" dog), so I knew it wasn't her. So like I usually do when startled, because I'm a HUGE baby, I froze! Obviously something had fallen unexpectedly and since I didn't hear any other noises during the, oh let's say, 77 seconds that I stood unmoved in silence, I decided to put on my big girl panties and go find what had fallen and the extent of the damage. My bathroom was actually the first place that I looked thanks, in most part, to its close proximity to the kitchen. And that's when I saw it. My little round, vanity mirror back (almost strategically placed/fallen) in the
EXACT SAME LOCATION it had been when I had noticed it that morning in front of the toilet. (NOTE: Please recall that I had placed the mirror back onto my sink counter, which is NOT lopsided, face down giving it no chance to "accidentally fall" again). Seeing this, my eyes got wide, my jaw dropped, my hands started sweating, and my heart started racing....you know, all those feelings you get right before the killer attacks its victim in scary movies? Welp, that's all it took! I grabbed the mirror, grabbed my keys, left the frozen food still in their sacks on the kitchen counter, and BOLTED! Right out that front door! I immediately called Ryan and told him what had happened, and he let me know that he had never been in my bathroom for any reason and never moved my mirror, as I had previously theorized he had that morning. He then told me that he wouldn't be returning home from work for another 4 hours or so. PERFECT! What in the flippin' heytell was I gonna do for 4 hours in the middle of Elk City, Oklahoma!?! Everything closes here at like 5:00pm. So then I call my dear Sister to tell her about the incident. She actually got scared for me, which almost made me feel better that she cared, except for the fact that she's like 600 miles away from me now so I can no longer run over to her house and play with her and watch Sponge Bob Square Pants with my nephew in order to help me run and hide while forgetting about my sorrows...and the ghost in my house.
That's right, I said it. Her name is Mary. And she is my ghost...well, technically, not MY ghost. But she's the "roomie" ghost-lady who lives in our house. You see, if you recall, Betty never specified what happened to the old resident, Mary, of our duplex who was a hospice patient. That's because, we now assume, she's still here...in spirit, shall we say? We still get all of her "Your Old and Sick" mail (you know what I'm talking about...those cards you get in the mail addressed to people 65 and older...talking about death, AARP, etc.etc.). And boy, let me tell you, Mary can cause QUITE a ruckus when she wants to. My bathroom is apparently her favorite room in the house because she stays there majority of the time.
So ever since that momentous day of August 4, 2011, the following are some of the other "strange" occurrences that have taken place in or around my bathroom:
- --Kami occasionally will stand in front of my bathroom door and stare...and then bark...and then move her head around as if following "something" moving in the darkness of MY potty room! And then bark again. I yell at her all the time to stop because, A) it scares me even more, and B) if I'm going to be sharing a bathroom with someone, I don't think it's fair that Kami gets to see her and I don't.
- --Mary throws soap at me. It's only happened twice, I think because I've started being very polite to her. I talk to her now to let her know what I'm doing in "our" bathroom. I might get a little more personal than she might like, but hey, I'm sharing this room with her now so she's just going to have to deal with it! Anyways, a couple days after the initial "mirror incident", I was showering and lathering my shampoo into my hair and happened to be staring at my soap and shampoo bottles, all NEATLY lined up on the FLAT sides of my bathtub. No water was hitting the bottles...no bottle was slanted. Everything was in perfect harmony in my shower! :) And then, while I happened to be looking at them, the bottle second from the right, my body soap bottle, started wobbling, and then fell, NO, was almost THROWN, at my feet! I stared at the soap now at my feet for a second, or 5, dumbfounded that she had the NERVE to disturb me during my shower time! I went on coming to terms with what had just happened. So I let Mary know that it wasn't funny. And to answer any questions, NO, I did not bend over to pick up the soap. I wasn't sure Mary's intentions with the soap bottle, but I just know that you NEVER bend over to pick up the soap...ANYWHERE! So I used my foot instead while still talking to Mary assuring her that I was almost finished with my shower.
- --She's then gone on to surprise Ryan and myself when we got home from our vacation last week to our speakers blaring. I was scared to open the front door because I was wondering what on earth was going on in the house. No TV on...just the music blaring, which we certainly did not leave on for the week we were gone. Moral: I guess she likes to party too.
- --She also likes to turn the water blazing hot whenever I go to put my face under it in the shower to wash my face...RUDE! She's done this to my friends who have been here too. TJ and Raven can testify. Raven can also testify about soap being thrown at her. And note (yet again) that her soap was in a different location that mine had been!
So there's the full story. Call me crazy, but there's definitely Something About Mary going on here in this house. (You like how I threw in that movie reference? Nice, huh?) Now if you still don't believe me, or just think I'm completely nuts, I'd like you to just drive your confident little behind out here and Mary will show you exactly what I'm talking about! She's no joke...I don't know why she's so drawn to MY bathroom, but she is. So even though it wasn't in my initial interest upon moving here to have a potty buddy, I guess we can share. That's what roomies are for, right?
Happy Friday!!
XOXO,
Bri
