I think we might have a poltergeist in our house.
I pride myself on never losing stuff. Or at least I always try and put stuff back in its proper place, so I can blame other people if it goes missing. This matters when you are in a house with two kids under 10. The mental effort of trying to find stuff that isn’t in its proper place is enough to push me over the edge. It helps if I can blame someone else.
Lately, stuff has started going missing. And unfortunately, I don’t think I can blame my wife and two kids.
(
Although that hasn’t stopped me from trying.
)
The first thing to go was one of those handy fold-out measuring cup things you use for baking. I’m the only one that uses it
because I’m still hanging in
there
on the sourdough front. It went missing about ten days ago.
This is very odd because it only ever lives in a drawer, my hand, or the dishwasher.
And now it has disappeared.
The potato peeler went a few days afterwards. Call me old-fashioned, but a good potato peeler can make a huge difference to your life. Find the right one and you’ll
end up
looking forward to a bit of peeling. Use a second-rate one and it can drain all the fun out of life. Yo
u’ll probably cut your finger as well, which is no joke when you’re trying to feed some hungry kids.
Anyway, after searching in the shops for a while, I found The One. It sat beautifully in the hand, glided over all types of potato skin, thick or thin, and even had a bit on the back for shredding carrots. Magic.
A small win is sometimes all you need to transform your life, particularly during the pandemic. Every time I took this peeler out of the drawer, I felt better about my life. Until I opened the drawer last week, and it was gone.
But then the white cup that I use to measure out the porridge went missing. (My wife will read this now and tell me I make it look like I do all the work in our place. Let me state for the record that this article draws attention to every single thing I do around the house
and
my wife does everything else. Happy to clear that up.)
This is no ordinary white teacup. It is the last of a set of four cups that I use to measure out the porridge and water every night, so we’re ready to go the next morning. This cup measures out perfect quantities of both – it’s the one the bears
must have
used in the Goldilocks fairytale to make the porridge just right.
Losing it was a nightmare. The porridge the next day was a sloppy mess, which made the Monday morning kids-out-to-school rush a sloppy mess. It was a terrible start to the week.
I started having dark thoughts. Maybe my wife or one of the kids was hiding things to push me over the edge. If they did, it was working. But t
hey had no reason to do this – there must be another explanation.
I did an internet search, where I
learned about Jinn, supernatural spirits in Islam, below angels and devils in the scheme of things. And then I read about
p
oltergeists – supernatural spirits responsible for loud noises and things going missing, according to Wikipedia.
I went to bed last Monday night believing that our house was haunted by something with a keen interest in kitchen tools. On Tuesday morning, the folding-out measuring cup turned up under the sink. The cup for the porridge made itself visible in the dishwasher.
There is still no sign of the potato peeler. I assume it will make an appearance in the next couple of days. According to the internet, the poltergeists usually put stuff back after a few days. I’ll let you know if it happens.
