Editing The Shot

Before I started A Speckled Trout, I toyed with the idea of making it a home decor blog with cool pictures of our house and projects I’ve done.  Then I just started writing stories and it never materialized into that, but once in awhile I tap into the interior decorator in me and want to share the results.

At the start of summer I painted our bedroom.  Mark painted the ceiling because of my bum shoulder.  He is always reluctant to board the decorating train with me – this one especially so.  I’m not sure why.  No, wait a sec.  There was this one night early on in the project when he was just about to drift off to sleep and I let out a big sigh and said, “I don’t know…..maybe all of this was a gigantic waste of money.”  I think that might have been the game changer for him.

Now we are headed into fall and it is still not done.  The Big Daddy joined was forced into the project and installed some bamboo shades and declared when he was done, “You know, this is really hard on my hands and wrists.  There’s going to come a day when I can’t do these kinds of projects around here any more.”  That’s because we don’t have a power screwdriver like normal people.  We do it the old-fashioned way like the Amish.  In fact, the Amish often come by in their buggies and ask us what’s the hardest way to do something around the house and we say, “Well, we’ve heard that if you use a tool that plugs into an outlet and makes the job easier you will burn in hell.”  And they say, “That sounds about right,” and clip-clop away.

Anyhoodle, when he said that I was all like, “Wait just a minizzle, Lance.  Didn’t you just stuff your hail-damaged ass into some spandex and ride forty miles on a bike this morning?  Now you’re telling me you’re weak in the wrist and can’t do this?”

And he was like, “Oprah, you’re busting my chops like I’m some kind of lying cheat low on testosterone.”

And I was like, “Un-huh.”

After that I brought home three different pairs of lamps.  Disclosure:  I worked in a lighting shop for two years.  My job was to help people pick out lamps.  I liked the second pair but Will made a face like he’d just seen that new wrecking ball video and so they went back on the shelf at Home Goods with Lamps #1.  After I left with another pair, #1 and #2 said, “Best of luck to you Brushed Nickel Lamps.  That freak couldn’t decide between paper and plastic if the grocery store was burning down around her.”

Then I went next door to T.J. Maxx and bought two tops because I had Acute Decorating Stress.

It was time for a craft project.  I painted a clock that we’ve had forever.  First I painted it gold, then bronze, then gave it a sanding and a coat of wax and that’s when it was official.  I turned a perfectly good clock into a ticking piece of shit.  I also didn’t tape it off to touch up one little spot because I knew I’d be extra careful, and so its face was splattered with a mist of spray paint which resembled Al Roker doing beach coverage during hurricane season.

I hated looking at all the bare walls but when I looked down that was even worse.  Have we been wiping our butts on the carpet?  We went to Lowe’s and got a quote for new flooring that was $2777.15 which was quite a surprise, much like the “guess how much our health insurance is going to be” surprise that we’ll be getting on October 1st.

The scenes from the crime…………….

The bed………  Not sure about the baby beluga because, after all, we do live in Kansas.  I tried hot-gluing wheat and soy beans up there but they kept dropping into my hair and crowding out the acorns.

The nightstand with the latest lamp, still wearing its tags in case it goes buh-bye like the other two.  And what’s that by the frame you ask?  Why that would be my drooly mouthguard which you won’t see on most any decorating blogs.

Here’s the wall that was supposed to be a cool Pinterest inspired mix of prints and photos but is neither because big prints and photos cost too much to frame so I repeatedly use small ones.  This repeatedly looks cheap.  And stupid.

                                

The Craft Project Clock which looks like it belongs in Liberace’s house (or around the neck of Flava Flav), and when I ask The Big Daddy what time it is he says, “Why, it’s half past that metallic monkey’s ass.”

And here is the real reason I have no business having a decorating blog………..the photo with the hand held massager (is that what the young people call it these days?) that my neighbor lent me for my bum shoulder.  Holy shit…….how’d I let that get into that picture?

In the design blogosphere this is referred to as “that unexpected touch of whimsy.” 

Alrighty then.  I got me a design blog.

This Side That Side

The summer my dad died was a slow and steady march towards the end.  I had last seen him in July and when we came back six weeks later his thin, gaunt appearance was so startling to me that any attempt to hide my reaction was surely in vain.

By then he was under the care of hospice which was a very new thing back then.  A couple of times a week a nurse would come to the house, and no kidding, this one would sit in her car parked on the curb and have a cigarette before she came in.

Mom, who was desperate to make Dad comfortable, would look out the front window, shake her head and say, “She’s the one who’s going to need hospice pretty soon if she keeps that up.”

The last time she came she gave Dad a sponge bath and when she was done declared, “You’re all good now.  Eat, drink and be merry.”

He barely ate.  He barely drank.  There was no merry to be had.

When his pain became unmanageable at home he got admitted to the hospital.  He was only there a few days when we got the call at 2:30 a.m. that he had died.  Mom and my brother, Jim, and his wife, Nancy, had been there all night and were with him when he passed away.   Jim called the other five of us and we all drove to the hospital with our spouses to be together with him one last time.

The days that followed were a blur of abundant love and overwhelming sadness.

When some time had passed, I asked Jim what it was like at the end and he said, “Oh, you wouldn’t have wanted to be there, Kath.  He fought until his very last breath.”

And when I heard that I was so angry at my dad.  The man who fiercely loved his God and believed in a better life after this one put up a fight and did not go gentle into the night.

Fought against what, Dad?  That’s not how it was supposed to be. 

And I stayed mad about that for a long time.

Twenty three years have passed since then, and long ago I had a change of heart about those thoughts that swirled over and over in my head about my plan for how Dad should have left this earth.  The “I know what I would do” of my more youthful years has lost its luster, replaced by a more frequent and pensive “I don’t know.”

I don’t know what my final moments will be like but it is human nature to hold onto life.

I don’t know if I’ll surrender or be a fighter like Dad.

I don’t know if my children will be mad at me if I don’t depart on their terms.

I don’t know……..

My father would not have wanted any of us to stay angry about the most unheard of cancer out there, his misfortune in getting it, or the way in which his story ended early.  He was a man that was always grateful for the life he had been given and that has remained the beacon in my own life.

My brother and I never had another conversation about that night again. 

I know that the ending wasn’t the end…………

Midlife Goals

I took a break from the 50+ section of the Huffington Post on how to look, feel, appear, deny, accept and embrace the midness of my lifeness, and instead read an article about goals and how to achieve them.

The piece was inspired by Diana Nyad, the relentless dreamer of the Florida-by-way-of-Cuba-by-way-of- the-freestyle 60-something that is the It Girl for Never Giving Up.

On that Saturday I kept checking my phone to see if she made it and was silently cheering her on.  And when she did………..holy speedo and swim goggles……..the fifth time was finally her lucky charm.

That night when I saw the news and her looking dazed and staggering out of the water I thought differently.  This is what achieving your goals look like when you’re sixty?  You can’t talk.  Your lips look like intertubes.  You’ve got the shaky shakes.

She thanked everyone, told the crowd to never give up on their dreams and be sure to drink your Ovaltine.  Or something like that.  I had a hard time understanding her before she was whisked away to the hospital for observation.

Wait.

What?

The hospital for observation?

For a dream?

I’m not that kind of a dreamer.

For the last few months at our local grocery store, when the checker has handed me my receipt I have been informed of the number of  points I’ve accumulated for the cookware promotion.  I never paid attention until I hit the 80 mark and then I took a long look at these Promo Pots and Pans and saw one I fancied.

While Diana Nyad was swimming in the gulf and her team kept watch over sharks and the dreaded box jellyfish, I was at the Hen House in hot pursuit of my own dream.

The.  Stock.  Pot.

It was mine for FREE once I made it to The Promised Land of 120 points, so this week I loaded my cart for the final attempt, pushed down the pain and made my dream a reality.  By my calculations (# of $$$ needed per one point) it only cost me $2,520.00, but I may be a little off on that. 

But not much.

When Extreme Dreamers strap on their extreme gear and proclaim, GO BIG OR STAY HOME, I know they are taking pity on the likes of me.  The ultimate stay at home girl………happy that fall is in the air, that the football gods will sometimes smile on us and televise our beloved Chicago Bears in Kansas City, that my big, fat sweaters can come out, and chili will be simmering in my freeish stock pot.

A little dream.  A little victory.  A little of the shaky shakes.

Pure of Intent

When I worked at a small boutique, the owner befriended a customer who started an after-school program for Catholic school-age girls on dressing modestly.

It was called Pure Fashion.

The culmination of the program was a fashion show and the owner would let the girls borrow clothes from our inventory to model.  Twice I was involved when the mothers and their daughters would come in to pick something out, and to say it was awful would be an understatement.

Clearly, the mother who started the program was The Queen Bee and all the other mothers deferred to her for approval on attire for their children.  While I was asking the girls, “Do you like this?  Does it feel like you?”……their mothers were frantically paging through the handout regarding length (not too short), cleavage (don’t even think about it), and sleeves (no bare arms).

Since I have never dressed like a hooker or a cougar and have two daughters of my own, I felt like I was more than capable of finding trendy and age-appropriate outfits for these young teens that reflected their spirit and personality……….that made them feel good about their style.

This was a different beast.

It didn’t take long for the girls to be near tears, the moms to become unglued and me wanting to walk out the door.  None of this seemed pure of intent, but rather an idea that got hijacked by a control freak who didn’t seem to notice that she was making everyone miserable.

By now you have likely read or heard about Mrs. Hall’s letter to teenage girls regarding their inappropriate pictures posted on Facebook and how her teenage boys can’t just “unsee it.”   Friends who go down that road even once get kicked off the Pure Hall Island where shaming girls seems to be as ordinary as “pass the salt” at the dinner table every night.

In her blog post gone viral, Mrs. Hall posted numerous pictures of her boys on the beach in their swimsuits flexing their muscles, and isn’t that what boys have done for ages to show the girls that they’re hot?

And so, Mrs. Hall got busted fast and furious on her flagrant double standard.

Though brought up in a devout Catholic household, my dad always flinched at public proclamations of Christianity.  “When you walk out the door of this house people should know who you are by the way you treat them,” he used to tell us.  “If you have to tell them, you have missed the point.”

I always remembered those words of his and so I, too, flinch when someone verbally climbs the cross and asks Jesus to scoot over a bit so they can take a good look at the sins of others from a better vantage point.  In the raising of our own kids, neither my husband or I were ever afraid to draw the line on where we stood, or to make them accountable if they crossed that line.  In a world that resembled little of our own teen years, it seemed like that was a full-time undertaking as they got older.

That’s why I never had the time to tell anybody else how to do it.

Peeing on Propane

After a year of the dating life, Mark and his parents invited me to vacation with them at Horsehead Lake in Big Rapids, Michigan.  It was a six hour drive from the Chicago suburbs.

I packed my shorts and swimsuit, plus a couple of sweatshirts for the cool nights and happily made the trek with my boyfriend’s family for a week at the lake.

When we arrived at our designated cottage, I met Marv.  He was the caretaker of these vacation homes and year-round resident of Horsehead Lake.  Mark’s mom would say to me, “Marv’s been here for years.  I can’t imagine coming here and not seeing him taking care of everything.”

He seemed like a nice enough guy and I would later learn that every morning for breakfast he would pour unpopped popcorn kernels in a bowl with milk and crunch away.

Every morning.

For years.

After we settled in I was told about the toilet.  Because of the close proximity to the lake and the possibility of a regular toilet accidentally causing contamination in the lake, Marv installed toilets that burnt waste via a propane tank.  It looked like a regular toilet but there was no water in it and it sounded like a jet taking off when you flushed it. 

I used this odd contraption the first night and then went to bed.

The next morning I was the last one up.  Mark’s mom made oatmeal.  I didn’t want to be “that girlfriend” with picky food issues but I hate oatmeal.  She offered to make me scrambled eggs and while she was doing that I went to the bathroom.

I started peeing and was instantly burned by hot steam from the propane tank that engulfed my bare butt.  I hopped off that fiery toilet and finished peeing in the shower but it was too late.

I was injured.

Injured real bad.

I hobbled out to the table with tears in my eyes.  Mark asked what was wrong.

“It……it……..it was that toilet.  It started steaming and then it…..it……it burnt me.”

And those Fishers tried to look sympathetic but they couldn’t help themselves from bursting out laughing.  They had forgotten to tell me that after the toilet had been used a couple of times it needed to cool off for awhile or it would be like peeing on a hot radiator.  “You’ve been christened,” Mark’s dad howled.

Really, Tom?  Are you sure about that?  Because where I come from a christening requires water which that effing toilet doesn’t have a drop of!!!

From that moment on I made sure to ask how many flushes had been before me as I wasn’t taking any more chances with that beastly propane toilet.  By mid-day when the sun warmed things up I peed in the very lake that Marv was trying so hard to keep clean.

After that summer Mark’s dad decided that Horsehead Lake was too far of a drive and so they started going to a lake that was a little closer.

No mention was ever made that a toilet that had the ability to incinerate your ass was a factor in their decision.

Or that a crusty, old guy named Marv could spend a lifetime eating popcorn kernels in a bowl of milk every single morning and not shatter every one of his teeth.

Antlers

I will blame my friend, Mary.  The friend with the dining room that made my heart fibrillate years ago when I first saw it.

Oh, and Pottery Barn.  That relentlessly prolific company that sends a catalog of creative mojo once a month that I study like The Beatitudes in 4th grade.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for decorating ideas for they will be filled.  Financing available. 

Between the two of them I have become obsessed with antlers.

I have a few of them within The Man Cave, but I have been on the hunt for more and The Sparks Labor Day Weekend Flea Market is my annual ticket to some horns.

The Fisher kids developed a fondness for the flea market when they went with us last year so they were up and at ’em with us at 7:30 a.m. for the ninety minute trek to the middle of Nowhere, Kansas where vintage reigns supreme.

The Sermon………Kids, trust your eye.  You’ll know when you see it.  Do Not Pay Full Price.  Everybody deals.  Be nice and smile when you ask for their best price.  We can always backtrack if you can’t stop thinking about something.

We wandered and wandered and wandered.  Prepared with sunscreen, a box of Cheez-Its, water and the rolling metal cart The Big Daddy insisted we buy a few years ago which has been the best twenty bucks we ever spent.  While the kids were on the hunt for cameras I moved ahead…….and like a stairway to heaven There Were My Antlers.

A whole stack of them.  The singles (how ’bout two bucks, Ma’m?) and the pairs (ten work for ya?) and oh my goodness, it was like winning the World Series.

And while I was deciding which ones I liked best, and The Big Daddy was saying “Really?  You really want more of those?”, a country guy was watching all this unfold and shaking his head.

“You know, lady, that you can get those for free?  The deer shed them and they’re all over the woods.  You just have to get out there before the bugs get to them.”

So I’ve heard, but I’m not sure exactly sure when I’m supposed to go into the woods to find them.

“Well now let me see.  Hmmmmm……….nobody’s ever asked me that before.  I’m gonna say before winter you should go out.  Yeah, that’s when I would go.  All you want for free.  I sure wouldn’t pay for those things if I were you.”

I thanked him, smiled, ignored him, closed the deal on my antlers.

Fifty feet away at another booth I picked up a skull for $8.00 and could have used a paper bag to breathe into to calm my thumping decor heart down.

The Sermon Updated………Kids, we’re city folk.  We don’t mind the flea market, the curb, the dumpsters, the garage sale or the dimly lit back room of an antique store to rummage for what we want to replicate on the nature inspired pages of the latest Pottery Barn catalog.

But without a doubt we leave a forest full of blood-sucking ticks to the hunters and gatherers and lay the cash down for the suggested retail.

Lust is a full-priced sin.

The kids pretending they’re listening to the sermon.

Now I need more turtle shells.

The Night Routine

I have certain routines I do every night before I go to bed.

The Big Daddy’s routine is to say he’s going to bed.  Then he goes to bed.

First, I have to take a bath because I love baths and if I’m stuck on writing something it relaxes me and I ponder sentence structure.

Usually a bath will make me sleepy unless it was too hot and then it makes me feel like passing out.

If it has been a productive bath I immediately go to the computer and write down whatever brilliant thought I had before I forget.

Then I put on my body lotion which is a very important step because I come from generations of dry skin.

After that I’ll do a quick look in the magnifying mirror for those black chin hairs that old ladies get and start plucking.  I call this My Nightly Face Farming.

The magnifying mirror leads to all kinds of analysis about the state of my face and wrinkles.  I push my neck skin back to see what a lift would look like.  I do that almost every night.

I get my clothes ready for work the next day.

I take some melatonin if the bath didn’t make me sleepy enough.

I put night cream on.

I floss and brush my teeth.

I put my mouthguard in for my grinding.

The other night I was going through my usual routine next to a dozing Big Daddy.  There was a wee, little bit of body lotion left in the bottle and so I was thump, thump, thumping on it to get that hunk I could see down at the bottom.

The dozing Big Daddy who wasn’t really dozing after all said, “Jeezus……….how long is this going to take and why do you keep beating on that thing?  I’m trying to go to sleep in case you hadn’t noticed.”

I hadn’t.

I always have the hardest time remembering that there’s two people in this marriage.  

                                   Best Drugstore Face Masks


The Natties & Me

When the kids were all in elementary school I got a job at Chico’s doing stock work.  Another friend had done it before me and called to let me know she was leaving and that I should think about taking it.  It worked out perfectly with having kids in school since you could set your own hours.

Every day UPS would drop off their deliveries and the store manager would call to tell me when it had arrived.  At some point during the day or night, I had to go in for a few hours to unpack everything and get it ready to sell on the floor.  

Since I worked in the basement and never waited on customers I could wear whatever I wanted.  No Chico’s styling – just me, dozens of boxes, hangers and the steamer.

When I had been there nearly a year, a help wanted sign went up on the door of my favorite store – Natural Wear.  It was a funky, independently owned boutique that charmed me every time I walked in.  I was often intimidated by the place and its over-the-top styling, but I was ready to get out of that basement across the street.

That August I had a new job.

From the very beginning it was a welcoming environment and I felt like I had found my work home.  A few weeks into my employment, the manager said, “Redo that wall.  It’s looking tired.”   

You mean the display?  I’ve never done display work before. 

“Honey, here everybody does display.”

I dove in and in time it became my favorite thing to do.  Tearing outfits apart and putting them back together again, for mixing things up meant changing the karma and changing the karma meant getting it sold. 

The owner had great taste and there was a massive quantity of funky antiques to use for display.  The sky was the limit and creativity was highly encouraged.  Looking back, it seems that they threw you in the deep end right from the start so they could see what your talents were and how they could use them in their Anthro-like environment.

At the end of October, I was sent to the back room with a vendor to buy scarves for the store.

Me?  By myself?  I’ve never bought before.

“We all have a say in what gets sold here so go pick out two dozen scarfs that you like, that you would wear, that you think your friends would wear.  That’s all there is to it.”

When you had proven yourself and they liked you, you were named a Nattie.  Many Natties had come and gone over the thirty years the store had been around, and when one of them came in that’s how they were introduced to me.  “This is so-and-so, she was a Nattie for a few years then she got her teaching degree.”

In December we had our open house and for one lovely, twinkling night everything was discounted.  For a few hours before the party started, we would close the store to get ready.  Just before it was time to reopen, Ray, the owner, would pour a glass of champagne for each of us and we would toast the Natties and to a successful holiday season. 

The manager that had hired me left and the other full-timer got bumped up to run the store.  Her and I worked really well together and we often sat together with vendors, bouncing opinions back and forth in the buying process.

One day I came in on my day off to help her buy from a vendor that was repping about a dozen different lines.  Lest you think this is some glamorous job, we were in a hot cargo van with built in racks looking at hundreds of items and trying to determine what our customers would wear.  It took forever.  As soon as we were done, I clocked out and scooted out the door as we were leaving town the next day.

That morning the phone rang just as we were about to walk out the door.  It was Ray.  “You left so fast yesterday that I didn’t get a chance to tell you to have a great time.  We’ll see you next week and there’s one more thing.  I couldn’t be happier that you decided to cross the street and come to work for me.  We’re very lucky to have you.”

Who does that?  Who comes in the door of their store first thing in the morning and grabs the phone to call their employee before she leaves town to say that?

Ray.

At the very beginning of the financial crisis of a few years ago, and after a warm fall season with a store full of wool, and a cold spring with a store full of linen, sales had been mediocre.  One day I came in to open and Ray sat down next to me.  “I’m springing for coffee.  Let me buy you a cup.”  While he went to do that I finished the bank deposit.

When he came back he sat down with tears in his eyes and said, “We have to talk.  I’m closing the store.”

Oh Ray.  No.

“I have to and I know you count on this job for extra money so I want you to know so you can start thinking about something else.”

There’s no other way?

“No.”

You’re sure?

“Yes.”

Are you at peace with this decision?

“I am.  I really am.”

Okay, then I won’t try to talk you out of it.  I want to but I won’t.

“I have a lot to figure out that’s going to keep us all busy, but we’re all going to get through it and be okay,” he said.  And there we both sat……too emotional to even take a swallow of the coffee he had just bought.

A few weeks after that the store closed.  Our customers couldn’t believe we were closing our doors and when the word got out they all showed up for one last shopping spree.  When that sale was over, an estate company came in and sold the rest of the clothes and jewelry and all those incredible antiques and display pieces.

If you have ever worked at a retail store that is closing you know that it is wild and vulture-like.  The only time I wanted to cry was when I was working the register and one of our frequent customers leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I am so, so sorry about all of this.  You know I love you all.”

It had been a hard couple of weeks, and in the buying craziness this woman hadn’t forgotten that The Natties were coming to an end.  The life force of that store was the creative, funky, arty women who worked and shopped there, and the realization that they weren’t going to be a part of my life any more was too much at that moment.

And Ray…….

Every time I think about that phone call it does me in.

***I still see some of the Natties now and then.  Often when I’m out someone will say, “You look familiar” and I tell them that I worked at Natural Wear.  “That’s it,” they say.  “Oh how I miss that store.”  

I know exactly what they mean.
               

Just Wait’ll I Get My Hanes On You

When I was single and working in Chicago, I would sometimes go to Marshall Field’s on my lunch hour to buy underwear.  Not the sturdy, practical kind that Mom bought every year at Sears, but something Sexish In The City.  Even if I was running on fumes in my checking account, a lacy pair of undies would only set me back five bucks.

A lot of years and a few kids changed all that, and pretty underwear just didn’t seem necessary in the mini-van.

The last time I sprung for several pairs of underwear at once was when Casual Corner was going out of business.  They had begun to add undergarments to their line and I got several pairs for 40% off.

That was in 2009.

Four years later and with barely any elastic left in them, I knew I needed to replenish the stock.  By chance, I was in Tuesday Morning and they had a rack of underwear marked down 90%.  Score!  I got several pairs that rang up at just under a dollar a piece.

They must have been there for a long while because when I went to tear the sticky product tag off the front it left a big white mark on my black panties.  Not really so much of a score!

I was in Target the other day and passed a display of Hanes underwear.  Right in front were packages of boy shorts.  Well son-of-a-britches, sign me up for that trend.

Oh my gosh, they were so cute………..my boy short briefs.  I couldn’t wait to wear them.

I chose the white ones first.  The polka dot would be saved for date night.

Maybe I bought them a size too big.  Maybe I should have paid attention to the word “brief”.  Maybe that’s really not the look for me.  Maybe if I get in a car accident wearing these things and the fire department comes……………

Please God not the firemen.

I looked like a fat, middle-aged woman wearing a gigantic diaper.

                          I need panties by the box immediately if not sooner. (So as to get my granny on, obviously.)
                                                         
                                                                                        

Dreaming Up Ghosts

The Big Daddy travels some for his job and unlike some of my friends, I do not mind being alone in the house.  I rather welcome it.  When the kids were young, we’d get Taco Bell for dinner and the freedom of not cooking kept me happy all day.  The freedom of having the entire bed and remote to myself kept me happy all night.

I never got spooked by noises or sounds and would drift off to slumberland in bliss.

Until………….

One night I was awakened by the sound of the bedroom door creaking open and I could feel a cool breeze on my face.  I lifted my head up and felt the weight of someone sitting on the edge of the bed…….a shadowy figure sitting at the end of the bed I was in.  I tried to kick it off over and over but my legs wouldn’t move.  I was terrified and my heart was pounding for what seemed like an eternity and then it was gone.

Holy shit.

I told Mark when he got home and he said, “Oh, that’s happened to me.  You were dreaming.”   

No, I’m positive that was no dream.

 “Yeah, it was a dream.  You were semi-awake and that’s why you remember everything, but it was definitely a dream.”

I told a friend and she told me about the ghost in her house.  She has made several appearances over the years and she could recount in detail every experience.

The Big Daddy rolled his eyes at us.

My friend’s ghost got a little too comfortable in her house and she finally told her she had to move on – that the house wasn’t big enough for her family and a ghost and that was the end of that nonsense.

The Big Daddy let out a heavy sigh at this conversation.

Months went by until one morning he said to me, “Ummm, yeah, I saw your ghost last night.”   

My ghost?  You did?  Really?

I kept badgering him with questions but he was in no mood to talk.  The Man needed to make a few calls.
                                               Ghostbusters