April Fresh Poltergeist

My wife Tonya has become an extreme couponer, and I am convinced that engaging in this movement has opened our house to paranormal activity.  Specifically, the potty is haunted.  In fact, both bathrooms have moved beyond the mortal realm -- all for one low price.

She purchased one of those black five-inch ring binders and filled it with plastic sleeves. Several pockets divided the sleeves, each designed to hold exactly one baseball card or (apparently) ninety-eight identical coupons for items the average household constantly runs out of, like ear wax extraction kits. 

As I came home from work one day, she met me at the door with a grin wide enough to make me momentarily consider calling an exorcist.  At least I thought she was grinning.

"You need to come see them," she said and yanked me into the living room.

We passed through two rooms and a hallway at such velocity that my vinyl lunch box streaked behind me like a blue vapor trail. Occasionally, a left-over olive would spill out, which at that speed could have been considered artillery.  She stopped me in front of the toilet, and immediately I detected the light sent of flowers.

Tonya pointed to one dark corner above the stool and whispered, "Loooook."

"Are those cobwebs?" I said.

"No! There!"

A white plastic brick was mounted to the wall.  Embedded in the plastic was a small, green flashing LED.

At that moment, I would swear I could hear a woman say in a southern evangelist monotone, "Step into the light, Sam. Step into the liiiight." I, of course, did not admit this to my wife, because I did not want her to think I had suddenly taken a side trip into Magic Munchkin Land.

I only knew how bad things were when Tonya picked up the plunger and struck a pose like a cross between Babe Ruth and Conan.  She doesn't touch plungers.  They are nasty, even new, because you never know when someone could have returned it.  She grabbed me then, and said slowly, as if I might misunderstand, "You need...to help me...get rid of them!"

"Of them?  What?"

"Automatic air fresheners."

I assumed this was the white brick on the wall -- the one beckoning me to "take comfort in the liiight, Carol Anne...er, I mean Sam." 

I said, "Right.  Are you telling me you don't know how this automatic air freshener got here?"

"No.  I'm telling you that it was on sale and I had dollar off coupons, so I got two of them for free."

"Okay, um, I'm confused here. They were free and you're wanting a refund?"

"No! I want you to help me kill them!"

Before I had a chance to ask her whether she had been cleaning the oven again with that stuff in the blue bottle, the air freshener went off.  I expected a gentle spritz followed by the relaxing scent of lavender, specifically designed to make your more vulnerable bathroom experiences less stressful than, say, giving birth to something the size of an ostrich.

Not even close.  The stupid thing moans!  First it hissed -- similar to my old cat Grumpy Tom when anyone invaded his personal space, which was an invisible bubble with a volume of approximately 6000 cubic feet.  Then, the device finished with a mournful moan:   uhhhhhhhnnnnnnn!

My wife screamed and the plunger went flying. . . .

. . . . right out the window.

Neither of us were sure where it landed, but I am convinced that, even as I write this, NASA officials are questioning former astronauts as to why thousands of skywatchers have begun reporting seeing a bathroom plunger sticking out of the rear driver's side tire of the Apollo Moon Rover.

I looked at her with the most sympathetic expression I could muster and said, "There coming to get you, Tonya."

She didn't feed me for three days.  And I suspect she had coupons for pizza in her ringer binder, which had recently swollen enough that when opened the book resembled the wingspread of a large extinct raptor.

For purely nutritional reasons, I decided I had no other choice than to call my cousin Marvin for help. He prefers to be called my Good Lookin' Cousin Marvin, mainly because of his fashion sense when it comes to coordinating his wardrobe with the seat covers of his 1993 Suzuki Hatchback.  This usually includes wearing a blue t-shirt with a Superman logo on the front that says, "Does this shirt make my 'S' look too big?"  Good Lookin' Cousin Marvin doesn't exactly have any formal paranormal training, but he has ordered from Amazon every season of Ghost Hunters on DVD, including the bonus Stanley Hotel episode.  I agreed to accept this as good credentials, even though none of his three VHS machines will play DVDs.

The first thing Marvin did was pull out an EMF detector.  Marvin is an electronics whiz and had made his own detector out of two old VCR remotes. Slowly he moved it along our bathroom wall and toward the air freshener in question. At first the device began to click. Marvin shushed me and gave an exaggerated nod.  I was sure we were mere minutes from him proclaiming, "This potty is clean!" When the distance between Marvin's outstretched hand and the air freshener narrowed to less than 6 inches, the detector began to squeal. My jaw dropped and I started to pat Marvin on the back for this demonstration of his skill.

 I regret to say that the air freshener picked that exact moment to moan. 

Marvin screamed.

And, as the EMF detector went flying past my face, I realized I had forgotten to close the bathroom window.

On his way out, Marvin explained to me that he was putting a stop to the investigation. He could not proceed without the proper equipment, so we had two options.  The first, and least likely, was that he could list his Stanley Hotel episode on Ebay, hoping to raise enough money to buy another VCR remote.  Or we would just have to wait until the next lunar landing mission returned to Earth.

So, now that you know this tale, I urge you to take heed if you or your spouse one day purchases a black ring binder.  Extreme couponing involves forces that were not meant to be played with!  Because it is only a matter of time before you stumble across a seemingly innocent dollar-off clipping that opens a doorway for automatic air fresheners to enter your home, too.

Tonya and I decided to live with our paranormal automatic air fresheners, even though the moaning seems to increase around 3:00 AM each night, and I'm pretty sure each time we leave, the plunger migrates to the left side of the toilet.  Fortunately, the air freshener manufacturer also sells night lights in the shape of camel crickets.  They even chirp a little bit if you don't get them all the way seated into the electrical outlet.  Tonya is terrified of crickets, but it is an acceptable compromise.  There is no telling what sort of activity will go on -- at least until the air freshener batteries run down.

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