Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good evening, I'm Ben, and welcome to the show where you and I gather around this campfire to hear some of our fellow campers scariest experiences.
[00:00:09] So whether you're a new or returning camper, I'm glad you're here.
[00:00:13] Tonight's story was sent in by a camper named Nora. And it's about how some homes don't come with ghosts in the walls or footsteps in the attic.
[00:00:23] Sometimes they come with something far stranger.
[00:00:26] An old piece of furniture that refuses to let go.
[00:00:30] The person who loved it first.
[00:00:32] Now, without further ado, do you want to hear a ghost story?
[00:00:40] For most of my young adult life, I had to make do with hand me downs, especially furniture. For a while, I honestly started to believe I was just the family's excuse to get rid of their old junk.
[00:00:54] Even when I told them no, I'd still somehow end up with a used recliner that barely fit in my condo. Or a table that mismatched my dining chair so horribly it made me question my life choices.
[00:01:09] After I finished college and landed a good job at a software company, I finally managed to save up enough for a down payment on a house.
[00:01:17] It wasn't a mansion, but I was proud of it.
[00:01:22] And when it came time to move, I decided I wanted a fresh start.
[00:01:27] That meant almost everything I owned had to go.
[00:01:31] I actually had to put out a warning to my entire family.
[00:01:34] If furniture showed up at my new house without my permission, it was going straight into the trash.
[00:01:40] At their expense if necessary.
[00:01:43] I know that sounds harsh, but you have to understand.
[00:01:47] My uncle once gave me a 1970s TV cabinet with a built in record player.
[00:01:52] Both the cabinet and the record player were broken, but according to him, it wouldn't cost much to fix it. For a really good TV.
[00:02:01] That gift cost me almost 150 bucks just to have it hauled away.
[00:02:09] I had this vision for my new place.
[00:02:12] I wanted it to be modern with clean lines and everything easy to wipe down.
[00:02:18] I was single, but I was thinking about furniture. I wanted pieces that were going to last.
[00:02:25] I must have visited a hundred stores, but I only walked away with a few things.
[00:02:30] A sofa, a coffee table, and a dining room table with matching chairs. This time, my friend Kate eventually convinced me to check out this new antique mall near her house.
[00:02:44] I kept telling her I wanted new stuff, but she bribed me with Starbucks. My downfall.
[00:02:51] The place was massive.
[00:02:54] I've been to street fairs that took up less space.
[00:02:56] After two hours of wandering through booth to booth, I was exhausted and ready to call it a day.
[00:03:04] And Then wouldn't you know it, in the second to last booth, I saw the most beautiful china cabinet I'd ever seen.
[00:03:13] It was stunning.
[00:03:14] And the crazy part was it matched my new dining table perfectly.
[00:03:19] I couldn't believe my luck.
[00:03:21] The price tag was a little higher than I'd hoped. But it came with free delivery, so I bought it.
[00:03:30] I never thought of myself as a china cabinet person.
[00:03:34] I was the kind of person who ate off paper plates or straight out of the takeout containers.
[00:03:40] My favorite utensil drawer was a graveyard of plastic forks and spoons. On a good day, I might have a sharp enough knife to open plastic on a microwave lasagna.
[00:03:50] So this cabinet sat there empty in my kitchen for weeks.
[00:03:55] Honestly, I felt sorry for it. I started wondering if maybe I'd made a huge mistake buying this massive, elegant thing just to collect dust.
[00:04:07] Then, after about a month, my mom stopped by for my birthday. I'll be honest, I usually dread her gifts. Just like the furniture, she has a habit of handing me some worn out hand me down and claiming it's a prized family treasure when it's really just something she found cleaning out her closet.
[00:04:28] But this time, I opened the box and was absolutely stunned. It was a beautiful antique serving plate decorated with blue birds and yellow butterflies.
[00:04:39] She told me, this is for your cabinet.
[00:04:42] A china cabinet needs china.
[00:04:45] I was shocked.
[00:04:47] It was actually a thoughtful, beautiful gift.
[00:04:52] I placed the plate on the top shelf, tucked safely behind the glass.
[00:04:57] Throughout the day, I kept stealing glances at it.
[00:05:01] Seeing that plate made me feel like I was finally becoming a real adult. And oddly enough, the cabinet felt, in a strange way, happy as well.
[00:05:13] But the next morning, when I walked into the kitchen to make my morning coffee, something was wrong.
[00:05:19] The plate was on the bottom shelf.
[00:05:23] I stopped in my tracks. I knew for a fact I'd put it on the top shelf.
[00:05:28] I'd spent all evening staring at it.
[00:05:32] I didn't have a roommate, I had no pets, and no one else had a key.
[00:05:37] So how did it move?
[00:05:40] Maybe I'd moved it while I was half asleep.
[00:05:43] I don't know.
[00:05:44] I put it back on the top shelf and headed to work.
[00:05:51] Word had gotten around the office that it was my birthday. And since I'd been talking everyone's ear off about my new cabinet, my co workers all chipped in and bought me some set of dessert dishes.
[00:06:02] They weren't antique or all china, but they were all gorgeous.
[00:06:06] I knew exactly where I was going to put them.
[00:06:10] I brought all of my new dishes home that night. However, when I walked inside.
[00:06:15] That beautiful bird and butterfly plate was back on the bottom shelf.
[00:06:24] And as the days moved forward, that wasn't the only thing I noticed.
[00:06:29] I started using these small drawers for my daily life.
[00:06:32] I kept my bills in the top left drawer, my office tools like pens and scissors, in the right.
[00:06:39] I would open them to grab a pen, only to find that the bills and office supplies had switched drawers.
[00:06:47] This drove me crazy.
[00:06:49] I live for order, and I know exactly where I put my things.
[00:06:54] But for the next week, the cabinet and I played this silent game of hide and seek.
[00:07:00] I'd put the antique plate on the top shelf. The next morning it was back on the bottom. I'd put my mail in the left drawer and the cabinet would move it to the right.
[00:07:12] Finally, I got frustrated enough.
[00:07:14] I was starting to get the heebie jeebies dealing with this cabinet, thinking that perhaps it was possessed.
[00:07:21] So I called the antique mall and asked to speak to the owner of the booth.
[00:07:27] I told her I was the one who bought the china cabinet and asked if she knew anything about its history.
[00:07:34] Specifically, I said, is there any reason this thing would be acting up?
[00:07:41] The woman chuckled.
[00:07:43] The china cabinet was my Aunt Gable's. I wouldn't worry about her. She was a high school principal for 40 years.
[00:07:51] She was the most organized woman I ever knew.
[00:07:54] She kept her heaving serving platters on the bottom shelf so they wouldn't warp the wood, and she always kept her letters in the right hand drawer.
[00:08:04] She told me that after her aunt passed away, her family said the cabinet was the only thing they couldn't keep. It was just too large for any of their houses.
[00:08:13] I hung up the phone and looked at the cabinet, realizing now that it wasn't haunted.
[00:08:19] At least not by a malicious ghost. It was just a piece of furniture that had been trained for half a century to do things a certain way.
[00:08:29] It wasn't trying to scare me, just keep me organized, I suppose.
[00:08:35] I decided that it'd be better to stop fighting it. I moved the heavy plate to the bottom shelf, and I shifted my bills and letters to the right hand drawer.
[00:08:45] Since I've started following these rules, I haven't lost anything. Once I'd set out to buy a modern house full of new things to get away from my family's hand me downs.
[00:08:57] But standing here in my kitchen, I realize I've ended up with the most stubborn hand me down of all.
[00:09:04] I thought I just bought a piece of furniture, but now it feels more like I've gained a rather insistent roommate who makes sure everything gets done in a very specific way.
[00:09:17] Thank you, Nora for allowing me to share your story.
[00:09:21] I like this one because it reminds me that not all paranormal encounters come in malice.
[00:09:27] Sometimes what lingers behind is someone's routine, a life lived so specifically that even death requires a certain sort of order.
[00:09:38] With that, I have no show announcements, but to everyone listening, if you would like to support the show, gain access to our monthly bonus episodes and get a shout out at the end of one. Head over to patreon.com do you want to hear a ghost story?
[00:09:52] But as always, I'm just glad to have you all as campers on this journey. Please keep sharing the show with anyone you think might like these stories, or someone you're just trying to scare. If you're enjoying the show, please leave a review. I would love to hear from you. Until next time.
