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Well, this week has sucked


For those who noticed my status update, my Dad was jailed over the weekend for driving under the influence.  He had gone out of town for a golfing trip and this happened.  I don't know the details and I'm not sure I want to.

 

Also, my aunt has an aggressive cancer that may be incurable.  We are waiting to hear on that as well.

 

So, things are not great.  

 

I have decided to write a few stories that cheer me up, and usually make me laugh or smile when I tell them.  Cause damn i really need that right now.  I am going to share them here.  

 

The first one is about my first trip to New Orleans.  I went with my friend, who I am calling R, and we met up with @joann414 and her friend, D.  It was my first vacation after a really rough year, and I wanted to get a full experience, so I naturally rented a room at the most haunted hotel I could find.  I did not share this with R until we were already there. That was a mistake.  

 

R does not like ghosts.  She was not thrilled when I shared the history of the hotel with her, she outright refused to check out Marie Laveau's shop and somewhat reluctantly joined me on a walking tour of some of New Orlean's most haunted places.  I was having a blast.  I loved the walking tour (which was on our last night there).  R did not.  She was freaked out by all the stories we were told (granted, some of them were pretty gruesome).  We get back to our hotel, set our cell phone alarms as usual, and go to sleep.

 

Well, Cassie went to sleep.  R laid awake for a while, thinking about ghosts.  And quietly freaking out.

 

Right at midnight, the radio alarm went off.  Which we never set.  Full volume.

 

R sits up in the bed and starts screaming bloody murder.  Cassie is woken up and confused, as it is dark, the alarm is still going off and R is still screaming.  I finally get the lamp turned on, turn off the alarm.  R is out of bed at this point and is insisting that we leave right away.  

 

It is still the middle of the night.

 

I am trying to calm her down, telling her that there are no ghosts in the room, when the radio alarm which I am holding in my hand, goes off again.  We end up yanking it from the outlet, and hiding it in the closet for the rest of the night.  

 

I am sure the cleaning staff came in and set it by accident.  But still, when we were getting ready to leave, we filled out the comment card:  "Room is haunted. Otherwise, had a great stay!"

 

R has not gone back to New Orleans since.

 

* * *

 

Another story is from when I first moved to my current hometown and was working at the hospital.  It was the holidays and I had Christmas off, but had to work Christmas Eve.  Every Christmas Eve, without fail, all of the family gets together, usually at my Grandma's house, and we eat, drink, and open gifts (but mostly drink).  I got off work Christmas Eve and went to meet my sister at my parent's house.  Because of reasons, we leave a little bit late, around 6.  It usually takes around an hour and a half to get to Grandma's.  Since we were both moved here fairly recently, my sister was going to use her Garmin GPS to guide us to Grandma's.  

 

Now Grandma lives in a very small, kind of run down town with very spotty cell reception.  Just FYI.  We start off and everything looks good at first.  We are following the directions that the Garmin gives us (well, my sister is driving, I am mostly looking around and delivering witty commentary).  Garmin takes us down this long ass road that looks like something out of a horror movie.  Narrow, poorly lit, with tall woods on each side.  I question our directions and then gleefully start telling my sister that if we were in a horror movie, this is where the car would break down and then a crazy guy comes out of the woods to chase us down before killing us.  My sister is hissing at me to "shut up, shut up, shut up".

 

We notice a strange, flickering light in the distance.  We joke about UFOs.  We get closer and discover that it is a house that has caught fire.  On Christmas Eve.  (Foreshadowing IRL)!  There are already cops and firefighters on the scene, so we are forced to turn around.  But it is okay.  We have the Garmin.  

 

Garmin flips out when we turn around.  We are sent down back roads, dirt roads, roads that don't have names.  A half hour later, we went up right back in front of the house that is on fire.  

 

Somewhere during this entire fiasco, we decided that we should call our dad and see if he had some better directions than heading down some unnamed road in the middle of the nowhere.  Cell reception where Grandma lives is spotty, so we are unsure if this is going to work, but we were lost and desperate.  We also both had to pee really badly at that point, and there was nowhere open because it was Christmas Eve.  

 

My aunt (the one battling cancer) answers the phone and she is, predictably, drunk.  Either the reception is so bad that she can't make out what we are asking, or she is too drunk to get it, because she is wanting to know if we are going to be there in time to open presents and if I like my new job.  We finally get our dad on the line and I try to explain best I can where we are at and how we got there.  His response was that he had no idea where we were and what kind of directions we were following.  

 

We finally had to ask the police officer who was turning traffic around at the house if she knew how to get to where we needed to go.  She did, and the directions were so easy and simple that I wanted to throw the Garmin out of the window and run it over with our car.  

 

We get to Grandma's around nine o clock that night.  We had missed dinner, but there were plenty of leftovers and once I had a deep fried turkey leg in one hand and a margarita my dad made me in the other, I was a pretty happy camper.  

 

Those are two of my favorite stories, happening the way I remember.  I like them.  If anyone wants to share their own, they are more than welcome to, but I just needed to do something to lift my spirits because I have a feeling things are about to get really bad.  I hope I'm wrong.  

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FormerMember4

Posted

I’m sorry about the rough patch... When it rains it pours. Sending major positive vibes and hugs.

I love the stories. Especially the ghost one. I love ghost history, but scares me. A lot of hauntings in NJ where I’m from. A scaredy cat like R. Went to Amityville house in high school, all friends got out of cars... I locked myself In car.

Things will get better sweetie. Things do get better at some point. Wishing your aunt the best!!❤️

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mollyhousemouse

Posted

oh Cassie, it does sound like a difficult time ahead :hug:

your alarm clock story reminded me of our alarm clock story:

Number One Son and i play video games together, well he plays and i watch for things that shouldn't be there and loot we should pick up.  so there's a pretty scary game we liked called Dead Space 2, lots of fun, lots of scares, things, creatures jumping out at you.  we had talked about that aspect of the game with the family.  they all thought it was hilarious when we told them that this scene or that scene had made us jump.

so one night, we were playing, in the dark no less, and all of a sudden this alarm started sounding, and we couldn't tell where it was coming from.  i think i screamed!

the hall light turns on, and there's my Husband, laughing so hard He's crying, holding an alarm clock.  He had sneaked into the hallway, plugged in and set the alarm all without us noticing.

scared the ever living poop out of me!  

oh, and He's done it a few times since then. 

so that's my story, hope it made you chuckle 

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CassieQ

Posted

16 minutes ago, mollyhousemouse said:

oh Cassie, it does sound like a difficult time ahead :hug:

your alarm clock story reminded me of our alarm clock story:

Number One Son and i play video games together, well he plays and i watch for things that shouldn't be there and loot we should pick up.  so there's a pretty scary game we liked called Dead Space 2, lots of fun, lots of scares, things, creatures jumping out at you.  we had talked about that aspect of the game with the family.  they all thought it was hilarious when we told them that this scene or that scene had made us jump.

so one night, we were playing, in the dark no less, and all of a sudden this alarm started sounding, and we couldn't tell where it was coming from.  i think i screamed!

the hall light turns on, and there's my Husband, laughing so hard He's crying, holding an alarm clock.  He had sneaked into the hallway, plugged in and set the alarm all without us noticing.

scared the ever living poop out of me!  

oh, and He's done it a few times since then. 

so that's my story, hope it made you chuckle 

This did make me laugh a little bit, thank you.  My Dad loves to sneak up and scare me and my sisters.  One time he found a spider, which he knows I am terrified of (Cassie is arachnophobic) and acted like he was going to drop it on my head.  I screamed and threw a video game controller at him and it hit him in the head.  He was mad, but he didn't try to tease me with spiders anymore.  Just, you know, in case you find that kind of info useful. ;)

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CassieQ

Posted

24 minutes ago, BlindAmbition said:

I’m sorry about the rough patch... When it rains it pours. Sending major positive vibes and hugs.

I love the stories. Especially the ghost one. I love ghost history, but scares me. A lot of hauntings in NJ where I’m from. A scaredy cat like R. Went to Amityville house in high school, all friends got out of cars... I locked myself In car.

Things will get better sweetie. Things do get better at some point. Wishing your aunt the best!!❤️

I love reading about ghost and ghost stories although I don't really believe in them myself.  But when I was reading about how haunted the Place d'Armes was in New Orleans, I couldn't resist.  (Besides the hauntings, it is beautiful and right in the French Quarter).  The only time i felt uneasy about it was the first night there, but that was after quite a few drinks at Pat O'Briens.  So I totally understand my friend getting freaked out.  Thanks for the kind words, they are much appreciated!    

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Renee Stevens

Posted

So sorry to hear about what you’ve been going through hon. Lots of hugs and good thoughts coming your way! :hug: 

 

This one might make you chuckle. A few years ago, my niece and a bunch of my cousins were staying with me for a few days. A little summer get together for them to spend time with each other since my niece lived in seattle at the time and they didn’t get to see each other much. Anyway. We had a tv for them to watch movies on, in the room they were all staying in. They wanted to watch Paranormal Activity, whatever the newest one was at the time. 

 

My husband rigged up a teddy bear with fishing line so he could make it move from outside the room. They were in there watching the movie, the lights off, and he started pulling on the fishing line. Well, one of the girls noticed what was going on. They all laughed and one of them said something to my husband about nothing he could do would scare her. Well...challenge accepted. 

 

He waited until they decided to take a short break for the bathroom and to get some snacks and snuck into the room. This room has a really really tiny closet in it. He hid in there and waited for probably a good five minutes after the girls restarted the movie before he made his move.  All of the sudden, there are blood curdling screams coming from that room, the door flies open, and seven girls run screaming from the room. Yes, even the one who told him nothing he could do would scare her. 

 

After that, they kept a close eye on where hubby was and checked the closet and under the bed every time they went back into the room. 

 

 

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Kitt

Posted

:glomp:vwarm supporting thoughts for you @CassieQ.

 

Garmin -enough said! We got one for my daughter when she first got her driver's licence. Hubby insisted we use it on a weekend trip we took.  It sent us twenty miles east of where we wanted to go, through the slums of a major city, then twenty miles west again, turning us down a dirt road that dead ended in the middle of a corn field where it announced we had arrived at our destination. We didn't even report it when the damn thing was stolen!

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CassieQ

Posted

21 hours ago, Renee Stevens said:

So sorry to hear about what you’ve been going through hon. Lots of hugs and good thoughts coming your way! :hug: 

 

This one might make you chuckle. A few years ago, my niece and a bunch of my cousins were staying with me for a few days. A little summer get together for them to spend time with each other since my niece lived in seattle at the time and they didn’t get to see each other much. Anyway. We had a tv for them to watch movies on, in the room they were all staying in. They wanted to watch Paranormal Activity, whatever the newest one was at the time. 

 

My husband rigged up a teddy bear with fishing line so he could make it move from outside the room. They were in there watching the movie, the lights off, and he started pulling on the fishing line. Well, one of the girls noticed what was going on. They all laughed and one of them said something to my husband about nothing he could do would scare her. Well...challenge accepted. 

 

He waited until they decided to take a short break for the bathroom and to get some snacks and snuck into the room. This room has a really really tiny closet in it. He hid in there and waited for probably a good five minutes after the girls restarted the movie before he made his move.  All of the sudden, there are blood curdling screams coming from that room, the door flies open, and seven girls run screaming from the room. Yes, even the one who told him nothing he could do would scare her. 

 

After that, they kept a close eye on where hubby was and checked the closet and under the bed every time they went back into the room. 

 

 

Can't blame the girls for keeping a close eye on your hubby after that.  That would have scared me to death as well, and I'm a grown ass woman.  Thanks for sharing!  

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CassieQ

Posted

13 hours ago, Kitt said:

:glomp:vwarm supporting thoughts for you @CassieQ.

 

Garmin -enough said! We got one for my daughter when she first got her driver's licence. Hubby insisted we use it on a weekend trip we took.  It sent us twenty miles east of where we wanted to go, through the slums of a major city, then twenty miles west again, turning us down a dirt road that dead ended in the middle of a corn field where it announced we had arrived at our destination. We didn't even report it when the damn thing was stolen!

Ending up at a cornfield as your destination sounds like a great horror movie set up.  I get that this was the beginning of GPS, but Garmin was awful.  I don't think my sister ever used it again.

Kitt

Posted

11 hours ago, CassieQ said:

Ending up at a cornfield as your destination sounds like a great horror movie set up.  I get that this was the beginning of GPS, but Garmin was awful.  I don't think my sister ever used it again.

You are welcome to write the story if you like!  If I were to try it would never get past the first chapter.

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Arpeggio

Posted

:hug:I hope it gets better. 

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CassieQ

Posted

5 hours ago, Arpeggio said:

:hug:I hope it gets better. 

You too  :hug:

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