No really, it was.

Roughly two weeks ago some pretty serious weather swept through my area and managed to wipe out both my wireless router (good-bye hours of recumbent web surfing in bed) and my Wii, (good-bye days of easier life), and also, for a brief moment, pulled a fast one on my nervous system.

The bolt that I blame for the loss of my life of ease came down so closely to my house that I heard the sizzle before the flash, and the thunder came at the precise moment as the lightning. It drove my cats into bed with me, and all the fuzzy members of my family were nestled near my toes at one point.

We'd all just re-situated ourselves and the smaller occupants of the bed were dozing off when another flash hit nearby, and I heard a high-pitched child's voice echoing through my house.

My Self-Addressed Internal Thought Process:
Myself: You didn't hear that.
Me: You did hear it, but it was an outside cat, or maybe a raccoon.
Myself: Doing what? Vocally complaining about the storm?
Me: Sure? Why not?
Myself: I'm skeptical about your reasoning, but I'll go with it for now.

At which another flash took out my electricity and I heard the child speak again, a high-pitched, excited sentence of which I could not discern any words. I sat up and took stock of the bed.

Me: The animals are in bed with you asleep. It's not them.
Myself: That came from inside the house.
Me No shit.
Myself: Uh, OK. So now what?
Me: Well, the electric is out. I'm not happy about that.
Myself: And if it wasn't you'd totally go looking for the ghost waif?
Me: Maybe.
Myself Should I talk to it?
Me: I highly doubt there's anything there. I've lived in this house a long time, why would I just now notice a kid ghost?
Myself: Fair question.

A third lightning flash, and another response from the ghost. This time I'm listening and I distinctly hear the world "Hola!"

Me: Why is my ghost Spanish?
Myself: That doesn't make any sense.
Me: No shit.

And the light bulb lit up, both literally and metaphorically as the lights came back on and I realized that there was so much electricity in the air that a Dora the Explorer toy was being activated by it.

Lesson learned. Even though it's pretty fun to conjecture about creepy stuff there *usually* is a perfectly rational explanation. As a writer,  I need to be sold on ghost and horror stories before I can buy into them. Tell me why, make me believe, don't leave me room to explain it away.

I'm definitely a Mulder at heart, but you've got to get through my Scully exterior to convince me :)