By Rick Hinton
There is a common thread of thought among those who do paranormal investigations that who we were in our past life will be the same after we die – if we happen to stick around after our passing. Thus, a mean and obnoxious person during our earthly stroll will carry over to the hereafter. However, if a mischievous and prankster sort takes up residence, it becomes a different experience for those of us still breathing to enjoy.
Maybe … this might be happening to you?
Mischievous spirits enjoy messing with you. It becomes a sideline hobby for a spook with a sense of humor. Ever had keys, glasses, or other important daily whatnots come up mysteriously missing? You always put them in the same place, yet now they are gone! You tell yourself you must be losing your mind. You search to no avail, only to have them reappear in a location you have previously searched; sometimes on the top of a counter in plain sight. Or … on the downside: they are never found. Welcome to my world!
My wife, Laura, on an unplanned trip to Tampa, Fla., stayed between two hotels near the hospital that her mother was suddenly admitted. The hotel where she spent most of her time was old and had a sense of faded regality coming from years of exposure to time and a history of people parading through its interior. The newer hotel was just that – new – and didn’t have that same history. The new one was comfortable and had all the amenities one would expect from a hotel in Florida, with palm trees swaying in the breeze of Tampa Bay. The old one, however, gave her the creeps. It’s Laura’s intuition I have come to rely upon in paranormal investigations, and she is seldom wrong. This old hotel, she felt, had its “bumps in the night.”
On Laura’s transition from the new hotel to the old one, she was fully aware of what she had in her suitcase. A hairband is an important item for my wife, and one she uses most days. It was in her luggage. She arrived at the old hotel, unpacked her toiletries – including the hairband – and left for the hospital. Several hours later she returned. It was hot outside and she needed the band to keep hair off her forehead. No hairband on the bathroom counter! And throughout her stay it never reappeared in the room. It may have only been a $2 hairband, but it was HER $2 hairband! She was pissed, and let the room know about it before she left. She doesn’t take any sass, not from me and certainly not from the spiritual realm.
Where’s the shock and creep factor in this ghost story? There isn’t one. Sometimes … it’s just the subtle things that occur; things we barely take notice of. They become messages from the other side, from an array of diverse personalities that once walked and breathed just as we do now. In our investigations we’ve experienced the playful and low key. We’ve also experienced the flip side – people who were not so nice when they lived. It’s the contrast between night and day.
You may simply think that Laura left the hairband at the other hotel, and only thought she saw it at her new location. Wrong! You don’t know my wife. It’s a compulsion with her to know where everything is at all times. Some might call it a gift; some, a curse. When she returned to Indianapolis and unpacked, there lay her hairband!