My ceiling fan is haunted.
I know, you might not believe in ghosts. I didn’t either, until an old Buick I once owned decided to lock and unlock its doors every now and then throughout the night. The garage was right beneath my bedroom, so I could hear it every time it happened. It was disconcerting, sort of like sitting at a funeral and hearing the guy in the horizontal box keep clearing his throat. But I had bought the car used, so I figured the ghost just came along for the ride, rather than showing up just to haunt me. I sold the car and the ghost moved on.
So, see, I know what I’m talking about when it comes to hauntings.
And I’m telling you, that fan is haunted.
I have four other fans in the house, and they all behave themselves. But not the one right over my bed, so I’m pretty sure this ghost has it out for me personally.
I like to sleep with the ceiling fan on and set to low, winter and summer, just to keep the air moving. It’s perfect like that, and I sleep like a baby.
Until the ghost shuts off the fan. Or kicks it into high gear. Just to let me know he (or she…or maybe it?) is on the job.
You might suggest it’s a botched electrical connection, but that’s not it. I know that for a fact, because I’m the one who installed the fan, and although I’ve never had any training in electrical work or fan-hanging, I read some of the instructions almost all the way through. And Scotch tape is pretty much the same as black electrician’s tape, so the electrical thing is just fine.
I operate the fan with a remote clicker I keep on the nightstand, so I thought for a while it might be a nearby neighbor with a clicker on the same frequency, trying to open a garage door, or changing the channel on his TV. But that’s not it, because I asked all the neighbors if they were up clicking away at 2:43 am last night, or 3:18 the night before that. They’ve all sworn innocence, and I believe them because if their clicker matched mine, then their garage door and TV would be doing flip-flops every time I set that fan right again in the middle of the night. So, no, that’s not it.
The fan is haunted. Plain and simple.
I can’t think of anything I might have done to raise any spook’s haunt-hackles — except maybe putting up the fan all by myself. I’m sure there are dearly departed union electricians out there, and some of them probably float around looking for frugal folks like me who took food out of their kids’ mouths by doing their work instead of hiring them. So it’s hard to get too worked up about it when ghosts start setting up shop in your appliances. Even though they’re dead now, they’re probably nice guys—but still, they have a point to make.
And so, late at night when you’re sleeping like a baby with the temperature and airflow just right, they stop those fan blades from spinning. Or they ramp up the speed until your hair is whipping all over your pillow.
I could probably set things right by calling in a card-carrying union electrician — not because my wiring is wrong, but because that ghost would consider my debt paid, and he would move on to the next guy to haunt. Oh, the electrician who came to do the job would never admit that there were no crossed wires to tidy up. No, he’d gladly accept my hundred bucks, then move on to his next exorcism at the next house with perfectly good amateur wiring haunted by a disgruntled union sparky. Those guys are tight like that.
But hey, I’ve lived with that haunted ceiling fan for nine years, so why would I blink now?
Besides, money is a bit tight these days, ever since I had to hire that union plumber to come and exorcize the ghost under the sink I installed myself.
Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.
