Did you ever have one of those days when the first thing you thought when you walked into your house is, “Time to look for an exorcist”? Me, too. For me, it was all because of a smell. It wasn’t a terrible smell, exactly; in fact, in smaller concentrations, the smell might almost have been categorized as pleasant. The problem with this smell, however, was neither its type or its strength; no, the frightening thing about this smell was that it had no visible source, and, as everyone knows, unexplained smells are one of the first signs of a poltergeist.
Of course, I knew that it had been bound to happen sooner or later—after all, I do live in a house with one teenager of my own, as well as several rentals, and, as everyone also knows, teenagers are the number one cause of poltergeists. Still—I had hoped that the visitations would at least wait until my daughter, Clementine, was in her later teens. Apparently, though, this was not to be—and so, wanting to know the full extent of what I was in for, I turned to that most unimpeachable of sources: the internet.
Just as I had suspected, the mysterious odor was an early sign of possession. “Stage One,” my source said, consists of unexplained smells (check), strange noises in the middle of the night (very much check), and mysterious cold spots in certain rooms. I was sure on everything except that last one, until I remembered that Clementine’s room had been absolutely freezing all winter long—she had complained about it incessantly. True, she kept leaving her window open, but still. I read further.
“In Stage Two the strange noises become whispers and giggles” Hmm. Actually, the strange noises always were whispers and giggles. It went on to say that strange writing would begin to appear on doors and walls. Yikes—maybe Clementine really didn’t scratch that anarchy symbol into her bedroom wall after all.
“In Stage Three, electrical appliances will turn on and off on their own.” Well, I thought, that certainly explains the blackened piece of bread in the toaster oven that no one would admit to putting there. It also explains how no matter what time of day or night I come into the house, every single light is on and the electric meter outside is spinning like a top.
I read on, horrified at how far along this possession had already progressed. “Stage Four consists of scary voices shouting out obscenities and ordering the living to leave.” OMG: that was exactly what had happened to me the last time I walked into Clementine’s room without knocking first. The site went on to add that stage four is when household objects start to become “mysteriously” broken—just like my favorite teapot that I had found broken in Clementine’s room during that same visit; the one she denied ever touching!.
My dread growing by the minute, I looked up the final stage. “Stage Five,” it said, “is marked by the poltergeist attacking the residents of the house, and may include biting, scratching and kicking.” I began to think of the marks I saw on Clyde after he had burst into Clementine’s room without knocking, and had just about resigned myself to the prospect of finding an exorcist immediately when the bathroom door opened and the same powerful smell that had first alerted me to the presence of a poltergeist hit me full in the face.
Heart in my throat, I looked up just in time to see . . . to see . . .
A teenage boy holding an industrial-sized can of Axe Body Spray; suddenly all of the other “symptoms” started to make sense: I just had a bad case of “teenagers.” Still—it probably wouldn’t hurt to call an exorcist—just in case.