Coincidence? I Think Not.

My hotel room is haunted.

I was going to post this yesterday but I figured being Halloween and all, no one would believe me!

Let me first start by telling y’all that I am sick this week; I have one heck of a cold. I found a Rite Aid here and I stocked up on Puffs Plus (with lotion!), Sudafed PE for day time and Tylenol Cold and Flu for night time. All I needed was some chicken soup.

Anyway, I didn’t make it to work on Tuesday. I stayed in bed at the hotel all day long. I kept hearing the toilet flush. It is not like it is continuous or even once every hour. But, the toilet would flush and I wouldn’t be in the bathroom, so what’s that about? Then I thought maybe it’s just that some hotels have thinner walls than others. Sometimes you hear your neighbor flush, or hear the shower running. I started to think that perhaps this was the cause of my hearing the toilet flush.

Then, on Tuesday, I was out of bed and actually heading towards the bathroom when I heard the toilet flush. I rushed as much as I could rush across my 15’ long room and into the bathroom. While I might not have seen the actual flush, I did watch the toilet bowl fill back up with water. Strange, huh?

Couple that with the fact that I’ve had dreams about my Dad all week long. And, they haven’t been the good kind, either. Dad just died in September so on one hand, it was good to see him in my dreams, but on the other hand . . . it’s hard finding out now that Dad has been so disappointed in me all this time.

Separately, these incidents are no big deal. But together, they have great significance. You see, the toilet and my Dad are quite synonymous.

Anyone that knew my Dad knew that the toilet was his favorite seat in the house. But, that’s not the story of Dad and a toilet that I’m talking about now.

Shortly after moving to Ohio, I had a nice townhouse apartment. The bathroom upstairs used to baffle me though. When I’d leave for work in the morning, the bowl would be full of water. Since I have no pets to drink out of the bowl, one would expect the bowl to be full of water when I returned home from work. But, there were a lot of days that the bowl was almost empty of water! What the heck was happening?! Where was the water going?

My first line of defense was my brother Michael. He lived close by, and he thinks he knows almost everything. I told him of my toilet issue. He gave me some far off story about the wind blowing over the vent on the roof and that it was sucking the water right out of the toilet. Well, while Michael is indeed a smart man, he has been known to talk out of his ass now and again. Hard to know when he’s being serious and when he’s not!

On to line of defense # 2. Brother Jim. I told him of Michael’s story of the wind and the vent pipe and he whole heartedly agreed. Was this a conspiracy to mess with my head? How could this be true? I called shenanigans on the brother alliance against the baby sister and went right to the embodiment of knowledge of all things plumbing – my Dad!

I told him the story of the water missing from the toilet bowl and right there, in front of the two brother conspirators, my Dad came up with the same story of the wind over the vent pipe! Oh NO! They got to him too! Not to be mean here, but I don’t think Dad was smart enough to mess with my head that much. You almost had to believe him. So, it became the running joke about my toilet losing water through the vent pipe on the roof. Because to be honest, I still don't believe that story, even though it was "confirmed" by Dad, too.

I know, that was a long story to tell you that I think my Dad is flushing my toilet in the hotel room. Either that or I really need to lay off the Tylenol cold and flu medicine.

To top this story off, last night, I fell asleep with the tv on the USA channel. I’ve been sleeping a lot this week with the help of the meds but it hasn’t been solid sleep. I’m dozing a lot is more like it. Last night, one of the times I woke up during the night, I heard the program on television. It sounded like a Law and Order episode or a CSI or a show like that. All I heard them say was “It looks like the woman in room 502 was murdered”. Guess what MY room number is! That’s right! 502! I found the remote control right away and shut the damn tv off. Like I need help with my nightmares!

Since I figured out the Dad/toilet correlation he didn’t visit me in my dreams last night. Mom however, was a different story. Who knew that she was so angry with Aunt Annie? And over what? Wow. That was a surprise.

Yeah, I need to lay off the cold medicine. And, based on the premonition of my murder, perhaps sleep with one eye open.