You quite literally could not pay me enough.
So I went to the Apple Store recently to get my computer fixed. No sooner do I take my seat the Genius Bar than does my technician show up – he’s a spitting image of Hagrid from Harry Potter, down to height, facial hair, gait, and demeanor. I pump the breaks on asking him to say, “Yer a Wizard, Harry”, take my Sorting Hat off, and let him get to work on my laptop. A few minutes in, he asks why I have so many word docs on my desktop with strange names. I throw down seven Hail Mary’s because there’s been stranger stuff lurking on my desktop and mention that I’m working on some short stories. It turns out, he’s also a writer, but specializes in twisted horror instead. Think Steven King meets SAW meets The Hills Have Eyes. He goes to abandoned former mental institutions and locations with notorious paranormal activity to spark inspiration. Apparently, he went to a very haunted home, wildly known to be harboring evil spirits, and ended up bringing one home with him. This spirit so intensely haunted him that he went to a small church and the entire congregation performed a full-blown exorcism on him. And catch this, THE SPIRIT IS BACK so he was going home that week for a follow-up. Because follow-up exorcisms are a thing you can schedule. So this entire conversation is happening loudly because 1) I have no indoor voice 2) am very reactionary 3) love ghost stories. When I look up, there’s some 65-year-old woman sitting across from us who has been listening this entire time and looks absolutely terrified.
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But catch this: ghost hunting is a legitimate profession. *tries to look up a famous ghost hunters on linkedin to see what schooling prepares one for this life*…I swear to God, if the answer is Hogwarts then I’m burning my college diploma.
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So what is it like to be a ghost hunter? AFAR released this fantastic article last year where they talked to a paranormal investigator about literally everything.
Excerpt: “So I’m now standing in this room, filled with all these dead birds, and I’m realizing that an exorcism had been performed here. Less than five minutes after we start monitoring the room, all of our equipment goes off at the exact same time. The temperature drops rapidly, to the point where I’m expecting to see my own breath. The EMF detector is going off like crazy. And the compass, it’s spinning around and around and around and it won’t stop. My camera shoots in video, so I switch it to the infrared setting and start filming everything that is going on the in the dark. Then I start asking questions…one of the questions I ask is: ‘Can you tell me who’s room this is?’ Twelve seconds of silence.. I’m uncomfortable, too…for safety reasons, I decide to pull our team out. Later, when I review the evidence and get to the part in the recording where I ask who’s room this is, this is the response I get: ‘**** you. It’s mine.'”