  Welcome to “Condensed Cream of Book for Busy People Who Want to Know, But Don’t Have Time to Read a Whole Book and All” by Pauline Cunningham Today’s Condensed Cream of Book is: Haunted Houses: Chilling Tales From American Homes By: Nancy Roberts OK. Confession time. My house is haunted. Now I seriously considered not sharing this with the rest of the world, as all of you will think I’m nuts.
But it’s just you people, and like you don’t already? Puleez! Like your perception of me could be any lower, and like I give a damn. So here goes. The guy who built my house lived here for 7 years before keeling over from a massive coronary at his office one night. He was 40-something and I’m convinced that he was so stressed out about how cheaply he had built this place, and how it might actually come crashing down on his family during the next strong wind, that he just couldn’t take it any more. So, “urk” and he’s dead. Now when I say the place is “haunted” by him, people are like, “Do your walls bleed?” Cuz that would be really cool and all, but no, they don’t.
Scary books such as “The Amityville Horror” which I speed-read in one sitting on a summer day long ago, have you thinking that your tap water turns to blood and your pipes become serpents that snake around your ankles while you’re sitting on the toilet in the middle of the dark night to pull you down through a sudden Hells-mouth that has appeared in your bathroom floor. Right. I’d have to say that’s a slight exaggeration for the sake of book sales. Here’s how a real “haunting” goes: Late one night, when everyone’s in bed, I see a man with very ugly hairy legs and a plaid bathrobe scrounging around the closet looking for his Polo shirt. Wait, there’s more. He’s a guy. He can’t find it. He dissolves into the blackness. Ooooh. Got chills yet? Ok, there’s the dark and not very stormy night at all, that my husband lies snoring next to me. The toilet seat falls, crashing down onto the rim! I’m startled. It falls again! What the hell?
It falls a third time and I yell at the ghost, “Knock it OFF!” (I’m tired, it’s the middle of the freakin’ NIGHT man! ) He cuts it out. Then there’s the turning on of the sports channel! That’s not really a terribly good story thought. Or the random opening of the two different garage doors! Yeah, now that I come to tell it, it’s just not that fascinating. Oh wait, there’s that one time he was sweeping up behind me in the workshop, and when I turned around, NO ONE WAS THERE!
Well, that just kind of pissed me off though cuz I thought maybe I wouldn’t have to clean up, but he just really did a half-ass job at sweeping and I had to clean up after him anyway. So in my experience, real hauntings are done by real guys who can’t find stuff, are trying to go to the can, want to watch the tube and are just kind of in the way and not really helping to clean up or anything. Some things never change. Freaky? Disturbing? No. Annoying? Yes. I’ve gotten to the point where I just yell at him, “You’re DEAD ya know.” In that tone that says, “Can’t you do ANYTHING right?” Which is probably how his wife used to talk to him, so I guess he finds it comforting or some damn thing.
Maybe the stories in this book are told a lot better or other people get to live over a Hells-mouth or maybe their ghosts are interesting or something. I think I’ll try to find a particularly gruesome passage and leave it open and maybe my guy will read it because it WOULD be cool to see the walls bleed JUST ONCE! But I’m NOT cleaning it up! 
