I’ve heard of haunted houses, hotels, schools, forests, roads, and castles; but a television set? If the idea of a house being repossessed possessed stretches the limits of your imagination, hold on to your sensibilities. These events, like everything on my blog, are true. You could ask the other eyewitnesses—Chuck, Alex, and Wolfer, Georgia, and Dusty (pets)—but both dogs and the cat are in the spirit realm and only speak when summoned by special people like me. Alex has tried to forget the whole incident, and Chuck isn’t speaking to me as far as I know, so why would he speak to you? (I know this because he hasn’t spoken to me since he expressed his dismay about this very same blog.)
Remember Mémé of The Evil Eye fame? She had a love affair with her television set. It was a case of serial TV monogamy: when one beloved SONY would die, she replaced it with another, equally beloved and more technologically sophisticated one. The last one she owned was a color SONY Trinitron with a remote control. She adored that thing. It was one of the few possessions she took with her as she moved from her own home to an assisted-living home, and then to a nursing home. It was large and heavy and hers. Even the remote control had a presence. She felt so strongly about her TV that she left explicit instructions about who would get in after she died—my younger sister, Lisa.
Mémé lived a long life and her increasing dementia mellowed her. After she got through the paranoid, combative stage, she was a docile, content Finnish-speaking old lady that everyone loved but no one understood. When she died at 93 years old, we were sad but knew her time had come. Since I was the Executor of her will, I made sure her pittance not spent by the nursing home was divided equally and the few material possessions she had left went to their designated heirs. Lisa didn’t need another TV and asked me if I wanted the SONY. Having only one old TV at the time, the “Broken House” needed an infusion of technology, so I accepted. Mémé’s TV became the centerpiece of our living room.
I’m not sure if Mémé was upset that I got the SONY or that she would’ve taken up residence in it wherever it went, but between the time she died and the time she was buried, that TV had a life of its own. I swear these things really happened:
- As Chuck, Alex, and I were watching a show on our “new” SONY, the volume adjusted itself up or down without human intervention. Several battery changes in the remote control did nothing to stop the volume fluctuations. Neither did unplugging and re-plugging the set. We figured there was a defect in the volume regulator.
- Then the TV randomly turned itself on and off. Again, we did the usual things one does to a TV to fix such problems: bang the side of it, bang the top of it, check the one plug at the back of it (this was before we had cable and 69 cords to fiddle with). Nothing stopped the TV from deciding when it wanted to play or rest.
- Deciding we got a bum TV, I unplugged the thing and went to bed. I was the first one up and I went downstairs. I noticed a faint bluish light coming from the living room. When I entered, the screen on Mémé’s SONY Trinitron was casting the loveliest light blue glow. Mind you, it was unplugged. I double-checked. I plugged it in and turned it on. A black and white movie appeared with a bluish glow behind it. The volume started rising and falling willy-nilly. I shut the TV off and the blue glow remained. Rarely did I wake Chuck up, but I thought this was worth his attention, mostly because I was freaking out. He came downstairs and saw the same thing I did: a blue glowing TV that was unplugged. We looked at each other and said simultaneously, “Mémé.” Her eyes were that very color.
Chuck plugged the TV back in to watch the news. It shut off in the middle of the financial report after some volume modulations. Chuck asked me if I knew a way to get her out of the TV. I’d said I would call someone I knew. Together, this man (not a TV repair man, but a funeral director) and I gently asked my grandmother to leave her beloved TV and go to where her soul could rest.
After her funeral and burial, the TV never acted up again. When it finally gave up the ghost, as it were, I was sad to replace it. I felt like I lost Mémé all over again.
So, there you have it. You now have a ghost story of a haunted TV.
Dear Divine Ms. L. …, 1st Edition « Lorna's Voice
Dec 09, 2011 @ 05:36:42
Lorna's Voice
Nov 08, 2011 @ 09:46:12
Hey, all three of us were in that car melting! But I see your point… 😉 Funny! 🙂
Bodhirose
Nov 07, 2011 @ 23:14:41
Cool–there isn’t a question in my mind that it wasn’t Meme glowing from beyond. I think she was unhappy that you ended up with her beloved set–after all, it was you who made her hat get sucked off of her head those many years ago! Hehe…
Lorna's Voice
Oct 31, 2011 @ 08:00:07
Tell me about it. I was kind of okay until it kept happening after it was unplugged. Do do doo do do doo do…
Tilly Bud
Oct 30, 2011 @ 04:51:41
Well that’s just creepy!
Lorna's Voice
Oct 29, 2011 @ 10:00:08
True that!
Lorna's Voice
Oct 29, 2011 @ 09:56:58
Thanks!
Lorna's Voice
Oct 29, 2011 @ 09:54:44
I’m sure your SONY will behave. My grandmother isn’t in the business of haunting TVs she wasn’t emotionally attached to! 😉
Lorna's Voice
Oct 29, 2011 @ 09:52:36
Start telling them–you’ll remember them as you go!
Lorna's Voice
Oct 29, 2011 @ 09:52:03
Thanks! It’s neat to hear other stories like this.
Lorna's Voice
Oct 29, 2011 @ 09:49:10
That’s really strange! I love it. Don’t be freaked out, spirits like to play pranks–harmless, really. My grandmother wouldn’t be behind this. She didn’t know about computers! 😉
Lorna's Voice
Oct 29, 2011 @ 09:47:28
Neat. I have lots of other encounters with the spirit world, but this one is the silliest. Pennies from heaven–your mother had a great sense of humor!
Lorna's Voice
Oct 29, 2011 @ 09:45:48
Yes, it was very real and hard to deny. As for Chuck, we used to be in touch at least once a month, but since he read a few of my posts and contacted me about his displeasure, I haven’t heard anything–even after the “setting the record straight” post. I can’t help how he feels about my story. I just hope someday he’ll understand that, even though I felt this way, I tried to make the marriage work.
hollyjb
Oct 29, 2011 @ 08:12:34
Wow. I totally believe you. There are things ‘out there’ that we just can’t truly comprehend.
Writer's Apprentice
Oct 29, 2011 @ 06:11:44
love it 😀
msmouse7
Oct 29, 2011 @ 01:01:45
I too have a Sony. After I read your post, I felt it “looking” at me so turned it off. Now it is late, dark (thank goodness it’s not a dark and stormy night), and I freaked, so going to bed. Hope I’m alive to read more of your posts this weekend. Bye (shiver)
tsonoda148
Oct 28, 2011 @ 22:04:54
I totally believe in these things. After all, I spent some of my best “buzzes” staring at TV fuzzzy snow in the wee hours of the morning. Oh the stories I could tell, would that I remembered any of them. 🙂
cleaningupatown
Oct 28, 2011 @ 21:40:42
I’m glad she chose the TV and you to visit before moving on. Perhaps another person wouldn’t have realized what was happening. I have a friend whose father died and a day later their antique pendulum wall clock that hadn’t worked in many years started working again and kept perfect time. Fascinating post!
molly
Oct 28, 2011 @ 17:36:51
Lorna, something weird just happened, I read your SONY blog, scrolled back up to click on ‘comments’ to bring them up so I could record a comment, and after I clicked on the ‘comments’ the ‘shading’ or ‘background’ to this blog only lighted-up in ‘bluish glow’, not turquoise, not sky blue, that ‘bluish glow’ blue, honestly it did, but only for a nano second, more flashed-up blue. Very eerie, because I had just enough time looking at the blue to realise I couldn’t see your commenters’ icons/avatars, although the white comments stayed white (on my screen they are white). then the screen flashed back to normal (black background). So Lorna, I believe you, molly (shaken and stirred)
Diana Douglas
Oct 28, 2011 @ 17:18:55
Very cool. My mom used to leave pennies on the floor when she would come to visit the first couple of years after she passed. I kept asking for folding money but she didn’t oblige. I guess ‘dollars from heaven’ just didn’t have the same ring.
totsymae1011
Oct 28, 2011 @ 16:27:50
Now, that’s some spooky stuff. I’d not want to think about it either. I can’t blame Alex and Chuck but really, that kind of event is hard to deny when there are witnesses.
So Chuck knows about the blog and doesn’t like it? That’s too bad. He’s not represented badly, I don’t think. A wee bit uptight but overall, a cool guy.
Lorna's Voice
Oct 28, 2011 @ 16:16:59
Ever the gentleman, Phil. I’ll think about it and get back to you.
Lorna's Voice
Oct 28, 2011 @ 16:15:12
Oh Al, you big skeptic, you! I’m not kidding–this really happened. Don’t get my grandmother mad–the Evil Eye may be appearing in a TV near you real soon… 😉
Big Al
Oct 28, 2011 @ 15:54:48
We used to have ghosts in our TV all the time. Of course, it was back in the 50’s and due to the antenna not being perfectly positioned on the roof.
Now I’m picturing a little blond girl sitting in front of the TV saying “Meme’s baaaaack!
Phil
Oct 28, 2011 @ 10:44:40
Wow, I’ve never been anyone’s 20,000th before. I feel so special. Just don’t get all clingy on me now. I’ll let you take the lead on the decision of how to handle such an accomplishment. I’ll start preparing my acceptance speech and well, I hope you don’t have some time limit and orchestra that will play over my microphone, all while some big tuxedo types
forciblygracefully whisk me off the stage.It’s your Voice and, as a result, your Choice, Lorna! 🙂
Lorna's Voice
Oct 28, 2011 @ 08:57:43
I firmly believe that spirits who do try these shenanigans are not harmful, only trying to communicate or having some fun with us skeptical humans. It was strange, but so much like my grandmother to not want to let go of that TV of hers!
Lorna's Voice
Oct 28, 2011 @ 08:55:01
He liked me so much he did it for me gratis. 😉
Hey, Phil, this is your lucky day, and mine, too. You are the 20,000th “hit” on my little blog. Not yet 6 months old and so grown up already, sigh. I feel like there should be a band and balloons descending from the rafters. I’m so glad you are “the one” to mark this very special (I think it’s special, don’t you?) moment in my blog’s history. What shall we do? I could interview you like Victoria does. I know you don’t want an award. Wanna do a guest blog? I’m up for any ideas you might have…well, that may be a bit too open-ended. 😉 Let me know you thoughts, Mr. 20,000th!
Margie
Oct 28, 2011 @ 08:52:21
My computer seems to have a mind of its own, so I don’t doubt that a TV would!
Phil
Oct 28, 2011 @ 08:01:25
Perhaps Mémé stopped by one last time to look for her lost hat…
Now that is a spooky tale, although spooky in a charming way. It never occurred to me to ask a Funeral Director to fix a TV. Was that included in the cost of his services?
maturestudenthanginginthere
Oct 28, 2011 @ 05:43:58
I think this is a lovely story, although I don’t know if I would have had your calm – I think it would have freaked me out, although I do like her style!