Toys in the Basement, and other Halloween Stories

Back when we lived in ‘Tosa, we had a basement in our two-sided double; it was one of my favorite places to live. We moved in on Halloween Eve, 1999. That alone should scare most people.

One night I was upstairs in the bedroom, and thought I heard something downstairs, low and distant. I went downstairs to investigate. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I heard the sound coming from a corner of the basement behind a bunch of my mom’s furniture, all bubble wrapped and tucked away.

As I approached the walled-off corner, the sound became more distinct, a repetative revving up and gearing down, like a small train with forward-reverse problems. On a shelf, there it was, a remote control ATV toy…and no batteries or control in the vicinity. It was on the floor in a corner, bouncing back and forth off the wall, unable to maneuver out of the corner for all the boxes around it. It FA’REAKED me out so bad, I ran upstairs and made Mike go get it and make it stop.

Found out later, the tenant before us had a brother living with him for a time, committed suicide in the place. he had mental issues, I think.

Maybe he liked the toys in the basement…

Today, Peeps got his voice. O.M. G. I was rustling around in a box of hair clips, and I guess the plastic sounds were just too much for the Birdie to handle, and he went ballistic. He started cheeecheeecheee’ing and hasn’t stopped in over 3 hours.
Later, while I was taking a phone order, the little silly began his tirade, and the customer asked if I got a new bird? She must’ve seen a post on Facebook, else she wouldn’t have known he was new. Yes, he just got his voice, I explained, and went on to tell her about our last ‘Keet, Spaz, with the longest vocabulary I’d ever heard. We both had to laugh because this one is definitely not far from the Apple Tree.

Let the fun begin!