We're Reading Your Thoughts (and We Want Some of That Wine)

Is there a Poltergeist at this vacation house I’m wondering? Because two things: (1) I corked this bottle of wine and the cork kept popping out – shooting out hard and flying five, six feet in the air; and also (2) there was this thing with my TV set..... We had a rainstorm the other night, see, that was so severe it trapped me in the supermarket. FOR AN HOUR AND A HALF I was the only dope in the place.. “Dude, the Parking lot is a TOILET!” said one of the kids working there as he looked out at the rain drumming and the wind howling. It was too: a world of water was circling this one large drain just like when you flush. Another kid finally went and got me an umbrella so to help get me to my car without drowning but the water went all the way to my calves as I fought my way there and then home.

Then when I finally got there, well let's just say I’ve OFTEN thought if Old Dave were ever hit by lightning he probably wouldn’t notice; at least he wouldn’t react in a big way. And he looked ok, meaning he wasn’t all googly-eyed and radiating, but SOMETHING sure as heck happened here because: The computer is history. Ditto two TVs. Plus, the cable is out. AND,  the phones are dead.

It’ll cost us big to replace this stuff if we replace it all and I just couldn’t deal with that thought right then. I kept thinking "If I can just sit down in front of this last TV that still at least turns ON and if I can get its DVD player to work, I'll be OK."  Because I had such HOPES for this vacation week - about how I was going to watch all these episodes of The Wire and finally file all the family photos from 2001 on. I was so hoping the week would be like that. It’s what I pictured all summer long: the peace, the quiet, the chance to sort through things and watch some fine drama uninterrupted. (sigh) I had such hope…

So I poured myself some of that feisty wine, popped in the DVD of Episode 5 Season 3 of The Wire and well, see for yourself: the RIGHT hand part of every shot appears on the LEFT hand side of the screen, while the LEFT hand part appears on the RIGHT so you have to mentally rearrange what you're seeing like someone with dyslexia does (and this happens whatever DVD you put in.)  Also, there’s this one giant black bar that runs vertically down the screen, and another that runs horizontally across it so that only about 60% of the picture is visible.... See?

The TV is in our bedroom and in this shot below as you can see by the reflections on the screen but here’s what’s eerier still - even more eerie than that wine popping its cork every ten minutes. In fact It’s as if the TV can READ MY MIND because here's what appeared, black bars and all just as I snapped the picture:

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I did: I had such hope for this vacation... And now I have some tingly fear besides.