One of Cardinal Richelieu's Most Unscrupulous Agents

I was at a party last night and some of the guests were in another room, playing with a Ouija board that someone had made a using a piece of cardboard and a shotglass. I don't believe in ghosts at all, and I've never played with a Ouija board before.

At one point in the evening, a few of us went into the bedroom to play with the board. At first, a girl and I both had our fingers on the glass and nothing happened. I think it was because whenever I felt the glass start to move a little, I knew it wasn't me, so I'd say, "You're moving it," and she'd deny it, but it would stop moving. She's a good friend, so I guess I felt comfortable openly accusing her of cheating.

A bit later, though, I tried it with a guy I 'd never met before, and a girl that I don't really know that well, and when the glass started moving, it wasn't obvious who was doing it. I know it wasn't me, though.

The girl was obviously well acquainted with spirit world etiquette, and she was asking "it" questions, but the glass just spelled out gibberish. She very sympathetically asked, "Are you confused?" At that point, "it" started spelling out, "F-U, F-U, F-U," repeatedly. Then she asked, "Do you want us to leave you alone," and the glass shot over to the "Goodbye" word.

I totally think all that stuff's bullshit, but I fully got the proverbial willies! The girl played it off so well, as if she really thought she was talking to a "ghost." I realized then that part of the reason the Ouija board "works" is because the participants unconciously cooperate, so as not to spoil the fun for everyone else.

That's my theory anyway. Pretty smart, huh?

Immediately afterward, in the next room, I was talking to a guy who had watched the "seance" thing, and he was telling me about how he's convinced his house is haunted. I very respectfully made it really clear that I don't believe in "ghosts" or whatever and I asked him to describe what kinds of stuff happened at his house. He cited instances of finding a door unlocked when he knew he had locked it.

I said, "A skeptic would say that you just forgot to lock the door."

He said, "But I always lock that door. I lock it every single day."

As an example, I said, "Well, sometimes, you'll be walking around and you'll notice that your zipper is down, right? But you'd swear you didn't leave it down. We go to the bathroom several times a day, and it seems like it'd be automatic for us to zip up every time, but sometimes we just forget."

With that, I looked down and my fly was open.

Swear to "god."