Spooky: Someone Did The Dishes and It Wasn’t Me!
Spooky October 28, 2021 The New England Classic
VANDERSLICE HALL 一 As I awoke from my slumber this morning, an eerie feeling seeped into my bones like a BBQ marinade into a rotisserie chicken. I rose from the bed, grabbed my spectacles and handheld oil lamp, and trudged into the kitchenette that I share with seven hooligans. As I crossed the threshold into the common room, a draft passed through me and I shivered with fear. What was causing this eerie sensation, this dreadful aura? I walked toward the fridge to grab a cup of prune juice and what I saw left my corpus frozen in shock.
The dishes that are normally piled in the sink like a toppling tower had vanished. The dirty coffee mugs and utensils that usually decorate the counter were also nowhere to be found. My heart began to pound in my chest as I checked the drawers below the counter, and my worst fears were realized.
Someone, or something, it seemed, had done the dishes.
In the time I have spent as a member of this Vandy 8-man, ne’er has there been a day where one of my co-inhabitants had dared to clean the mass of stolen bowls and plates from our kitchenette sink. Another chill swept through my body as I accepted the only logical reasoning for this supernatural occurrence.
A ghost, a ghoul, if you will, must have done this not so dastardly deed.
I glanced over to the cobweb-covered whiteboard labeled “chore chart” crookedly hung on our kitchenette wall. It still said “Week of 8/30” at the top. I felt like I had walked into an episode of The Twilight Zone. Only something supernatural could have accomplished what the seven able bodied inhabitants of my 8-man seem incapable of doing.
I fell to my knees, overwhelmed by emotion. A single tear fell as I felt the slight breeze of the ghost of Vanderslice past exit through our window without breaking the red tab. When my roommates awoke, they silently walked past me and when they saw the clean sink exclaimed, “Oh cool, someone did the dishes again!” A broken smile crept across my face and I raised my arms upward toward the heavens, sobbing uncontrollably on the floor. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
