I am officially a ghost hunter and I’m worse for it

My wife and I had a little anniversary getaway and we had a nice time, great food, and even had time for little something different: a ghost hunt.  By the end, I was more scared of the people in our group than the angriest phantasm on this world or the next.

My group’s worst offenders as we walked into a dark cemetery were the following: drunk bachelor party, extremely loud older lady asking dumb questions like she was trying to ruin the trip, guy who believed a little too much in ghosts and everyone else.  How it worked was we got a rundown of the history for about an hour, then dousing rods were used.  Basically they moved into an x for yes, stayed straight for no.  I don’t know who came up with this, like the international ghost hunter union met with representatives of the afterlife and there were memos sent out, but that’s the deal.  Only yes or no, kind of hard to answer otherwise when you’re manipulating rods.

The guide, who was constantly apologizing for things she didn’t need to, was asking the group to come up with a question for the ghost/spirit in question and loud lady yelled, “Who’s birthday is it?”  You have one chance to communicate with the great beyond and you want to play carny games.  Good job, I’m sure the spirit has been roaming the earth for 1000 years so it can predict Esther’s 59th birthday.

The other guy kept trying to get involved and asking things like, “Are the spirits here?  What’s the science behind this?”  You just asked two different questions there, chief.  If there are spirits roaming around, there’s probably not a scientific consensus and our guide isn’t exactly breaking down charts over here, she’s got two copper rods and a mini Mag-light.

It was actually interesting to hear the history, even though as I mentioned, the guide was saying things like, “This man passed in 1858…or maybe it was 1857.  Actually maybe 1856.”  Just make it up, lady, the six guys chugging moonshine out of solo cups aren’t going to fact check you tomorrow morning.  The flashlight began to dim with no one holding it and the EKG meter or whatever it was went nuts once, which prompted loud lady to yell at the ghost to do more and true believer guy to lose his mind.  By the end, I didn’t care if some apparition ravaged the group as long as they took loud lady back down into hell with them.  Maybe we will do a private hunt next time.  For the bar.