Chicken

Surprise!

I chickened out.  I wasn't good enough yesterday to risk getting on the scale today.  I have a bit busier of a day today so perhaps I'll eat less, get my laxatives in and then get on the scale tomorrow.

Now, 2 things unrelated to scales.

First, this blog is called Haunted, is it not?  I have said that it's about being haunted by ghosts and by worries/fears/ideas/etc.  We've touched on that second category many times, but not so much the first.  So I thought I would share with you one of my earliest ethereal encounters.

I was 11 years old, and sitting in my bedroom (which was the bonus-room above the garage.)  Here is a diagram of what the room looked like.

I was sitting on the bed, reading, with my back against the long side wall.  Suddenly, I heard a knocking sound. I thought it was my dad knocking on the door, so I called "Come in!"  Nothing happened.  I yelled it again.  Still nothing.  I went to the door that leads to the hallway, opened it, and nobody was there.  So I went back to my book. 

*Knock knock knock knock!*

"COME IN!!!" I hollered.  Still nobody came in, of course.  The knocking persisted, so I ran to the door and threw it open.  And then something dawned on me.... there was nobody home but ME! 

The knocking was still happening, and I got pissed off.  I decided to figure out what was causing it, so I stepped back into the room and listened.  I realized the knocking sound was coming from the wall I had just been leaning against.  (The big X on the wall in the diagram indicates where the knocking was coming from.) On the other side of that wall is the attic space.  I felt relieved, thinking it was probably a trapped squirrel or raccoon or something.  So I went to the attic door in the corner, opened it, and poked my head inside and looked down along that wall.  I froze.

The entire wall on the inside was made of insulation.  Pink, fluffy, cotton-candy-like insulation.  You cannot knock on cotton candy.  That put the shocking realization in my brain that the knocking was coming from the sheet-rock side of the wall.  And that meant that whatever was knocking was in the room with me!

By this time the knocking had stopped.  I walked, shaking, back into my room.  No sooner had I closed the attic door that the knocking started again.  I knew what it was.  I said, as bravely as I could, "You don't have to do this, I know you are here."  And just like that - the knocking stopped.

Weird, huh?  I actually caught that knocking sound on tape once, and played it for my dad (who is a firm skeptic.)  He said, "oh, it's just YOU knocking."  But it really, really wasn't.

The second scale-unrelated thing is that I drew another picture.  It's eating disorder related, but not scale related.  Here it is: