Tag Archives: ghost story

Is a Redundancy as Bad as a Tautology?

Posted on August 18, 2023 by mohawkvalleygirl

So after a weekend of missed blog posts, I have had a week of late blog posts.  At least it is Friday, early morning as I sit, lounged on my couch pecking in one letter at a time with the stylus on my Tablet (most of that clause helpfully supplied by the predictive text thingy), and gratefully sipping coffee.

I was about to tell you of a weird, unexplained thing, but as soon as I started to, the explanation dawned on me.  The weird thing was this:  I did not put on coffee last night (no, that’s not the weird thing, keep reading).  I thought, I am not going to put on coffee and I am going to leave the kitchen light on all night.  I have a thing for leaving lights on lately, although I try to be conscientious about saving electricity.  When I got up this morning, the kitchen light was off!  I know I left it on! I remember deciding to!  Weird!

As soon as I started to tell the story,  I remembered.  After going upstairs I realized I had not taken my pills.  I had brought my old lady pill holder (the kind with a.m. and p.m. Monday through Friday) downstairs, because I have been being very bad about taking my a.m. pills.  I had it upstairs because my p.m. pills are more important and I was afraid if I forgot to take them I would be too lazy to walk downstairs and correct the omission.

So I proved myself not too lazy to walk down the stairs and no doubt automatically turned off the light, not even thinking about it (was that a redundancy to say “automatically ” and “not even thinking about it”?  I suppose so, but I do so for emphasis).

I am sorry I do not have a ghost story to share.  It would have been a nice follow-up to my Mid-Week Monsters Post.  However, I see I am over 300 words.  I guess I’ll slap on a headline and bill it as a Non-Sequitur Thursday Post.

 

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Not Your Average Ghost Story

Posted on September 19, 2012 by mohawkvalleygirl

Steven and I continued our Sunday Horror Classic viewing (hey, that’s what the box calls them!) with The Amazing Mr. X (1948). We selected this movie using the most stringent criteria: it was the other movie on the disc with the first one we watched.

I am hesitant to write this review, because I really really don’t want to give anything away. As twists and turns go, this is the twistiest one yet. So I guess this is your Spoiler Alert. I’ll do my best not to, but…

The movie does not start out twisted. It starts out like a common or garden ghost story. A widow of two years’ standing is getting ready to go out on a date with a man who is certain to propose. Her spunky kid sister, who has a date herself, is all in favor of Widow getting on with her life. Sis picks out a sexy white dress for Widow to wear instead of the black one she had intended.

Good for you, Sis! Let’s be a little more obvious, shall we, Widow? Come on! A black dress — and not an LBD, mind you — on a date where a guy is going to propose? Shame on you!

Ah, but she remembers her husband fondly. How he loved to swim! He would run down to the ocean yelling, “Last one in’s a chicken!” Hmmm, that’s not foreshadowing, is it?

Widow decides to walk along the beach to meet her date. It will be quicker and she will enjoy the walk. Through the sand in high-heeled dress shoes. Good idea. As she walks, she seems to hear her dead husband calling her name (which I don’t remember. I think I mentioned yesterday that I watch these movies casually). I thought he sounded hoarse, even for a ghost.

Then Widow meets a stranger — handsome, of course — who tells her all about herself. He gives her his card. The card does not identify him as, nor does anybody ever call him Mr. X. I suppose that’s mere quibble, though, because he is kind of amazing.

That night the Widow is visited by a ghost — or is it only a dream? Cue spooky music. It is after this point that the plot begins to thicken. Widow visits the mysterious Mr. X (which may have been a better name for the movie, but nobody asked me), determined to contact her dead husband.

But is Mr. X a charlatan? New Fiance and Spunky Kid Sister are convinced he is. What do to? Kid Sister sets out to prove it by visiting Mr. X as a new client. Now how dumb is that? You think the guy is a charlatan, that he cleverly found out all this stuff about Widow, not that he knew it psychically. Don’t you suppose in his research he might have come across the fact that Widow has a Kid Sister?

Kid Sister quickly falls for Mr. X herself and the plot continues to thicken. And then come the plot twists that I intend to keep to myself. It gets exciting. I especially liked the dramatic climax when… Hah! Thought I was going to let something slip, didn’t you? I recommend this movie for fun, casual viewing. Steven is sorry he slept through it.

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