Jingle Bell

When I was younger, I lived in a house that forever gave me "funny" feelings. We lived in that house maybe 2 years, but it gave me memories that will last forever.

The first time that I ever felt anything in that house, was about a month after moving in. All at once something was wrong with everyone in our family. My two year old brother had pneumonia, my mother had a severe case of hepatitis, I broke my arm at school and my father had a disk slip in his back. Seems like it took forever for everyone to "heal". That was only the beginning.

Those two years, I was a latch-key kid. I would get home from school at 3:10pm and no one else in the family would get home until 5:30pm. Those few hours usually scared me to goose bumps and raised hairs. I would get home, throw my books and backpack into my room and run downstairs to watch cartoons. As soon as I would enter the family room, I could feel this electric sensation starting at the back of my neck traveling down through my back. It's the same kind of feeling that you get from sitting really close to the TV when it is not on, then turning it on. That kind of static electricity. I would stop and look around the well lit room every time and see nothing. This happened until the very last day that we lived in that house.

Approximately two months before moving out, I was laying in bed almost asleep. My brother was sound asleep in the next room. My parents were down in the family room watching television with the door closed. It was a spring night, not hot and not cold. I bring this up to point out the fact that neither the heater nor the air conditioner was on. The windows in my room were not open. Above my head, there was a marionette of a bird that I had hanging on the light fixture. This puppet had been there since we first had moved in. Nearly asleep, I heard one of those little jingle bells (the kind you see on elves shoe tips) rolling up and down the hallway. The hallway was L shaped and my room was at the corner where the two ends met. This lasted for about 5 minutes. I closed my eyes and bolted out of bed, thinking I was going to catch someone in my family playing a trick on me. No one was in the hall. I checked my brother and he was sound asleep. I snuck downstairs and I could hear my parents watching television, with the door still closed. I went back up into my room and wriggled down as deep as I could under my covers without actually putting my head under. Almost immediately after settling down, the bell started traveling up and down the hallway again. I closed my eyes and pretended not to hear it. After another 5 minutes of listening to it, I opened my eyes, only to see that stupid puppet that had been hanging from my light fixture for two years being pulled away and thrown directly towards the only part of my body that wasn't under the covers. My face!! Needless to say, I waved my arm quickly to barely knock the bird off my bed and submersed my entire body under the covers. I was 11 then, now I am 28. I haven't had anymore experiences quite like that. Every now and then I will get a funny feeling but nothing like in that house.

I didn't tell my mother this story until a few years ago. To my surprise, she believed me and said that she had no doubt that the house had a life of it's own.