Stranger Things

Yesterday morning my eyes were attracted to something unusual hanging on the side of my chest of shelves, just beside my cane. An umbrella. Upon examining it further, I found it to be a Giordano umbrella. The unusual thing about this umbrella is that I don't own an umbrella. I have never had an umbrella as long as I've lived here in Bali. So where did this umbrella come from? How has it simply shown up here in my room hanging next to my cane? I have had no visitors. I never have visitors. And in any case it has not been raining.

This strange discovery was followed by yet another mystery. As I climbed into the shower and began to bathe, suddenly the lights went out. In fact, all the electricity went out, which means that the hot water heater died as did the water pressure in the shower, which are both dependent upon an electrically powered pump.

I reckoned at first that this was a universal outage in the neighborhood, not uncommon in Bali, but then thought to check the fuse box outside (or whatever they call them these days). Indeed, I found that the switch for my house alone had been tripped. 

Turning the switch back on, I returned to the shower, only to lose the electricity again after perhaps 3 minutes (enough time to cover oneself with soap but not to rinse). 

Back to the switch. Off again. Flip on again. Shower again. And, you guessed it, electricity out again. 

So I called up the project manager, who in turn called in her tukang, or worker. 

A couple of hours later, upon his arrival, I set out to demonstrate the problem, but this became a new problem altogether when the original problem refused to repeat itself. I felt like Don Knotts in the old movie The Ghost and Mister Chicken (if anyone remembers that). No matter how hard Knotts tries to recreate the events of a haunting he endured, they will just not happen again, making him look like either a fool or a liar. 

"Ya Pak," the tukang says, don't touch that button on the water heater."

"I didn't touch the button."

"Ya, if you touch the button, it turns off the unit. If you don't want to use the hot water, just unplug it here." He helpfully indicates the wall socket plug.

"But I didn't touch any button or any plug. I just tried to take a shower--three times!" 

"Hmm. Strange. Well, I can't fix it if it already works. Ha ha. Everything seems fine now, Pak."

Can't argue with that, I guess. And in fact everything does work. The shower and the electricity has been fine ever since. 

My conclusion is that all this is the doing of the wall garden ghost, who has become much more active lately (ever since she snuck in and slammed the front door on my fingers). I reckon she has announced her presence with the umbrella which belongs to no one, and especially not to me, and with playing with electricity and water and such like, as ghosts are wont to do. A ridiculous notion? Sure. But ridiculous events call for equally ridiculous answers (until a better one presents itself, if ever).