I Was Going To Say That My House Was Built On A Native American Burial Ground, But Then I Realized It’s Just Me
Anyone who has read my blog for very long knows that I bring weirdness wherever I go. And not just because I’m weird; that might actually make sense.
Aunt Becky in ANY situation = abounding weirdness..
Back in December, I went to Las Vegas for the first time a mere five weeks after I’d had major abdominal surgery because I’m Eye of the Motherfucking Tiger like that. Also: dumb as a box of rocks.
I’d decided to room with my friend Mandi at the MGM Signature, which is like the MGM but better. (Better = more expensive.) When we arrived, we saw that the suite we’d gotten was actually in the Penthouse and directly adjacent to Jana’s room. We even double doors that that we could lock to create a nice fortress.
It was pretty fucking sweet.
On Saturday, the three of us left together to go to a party.
“People say I’m the life of the party…”
Turns out that abdominal surgery and partying are kinda like oil and water. Or me and John C. Mayer.
I left the party early because I felt like a hot slice of ass. Mandi and Jana were both whooping it up with Elvis as I cabbed it back to the MGM by myself. For as paranoid as I can be about colonies of earwigs nesting in my ear, I’m not really a paranoid person and I’m totally capable of taking care of myself.
When I got back up to our floor, I was in agony. All I wanted to do was to lay down.
But when I reached the double doors, I found them…open. I was almost certain that we’d shut and locked them behind us (I’m Captain Motherfucking Safety, you know).
When I entered the foyer, I saw that my OWN door was open, too. I’d have been shocked if I’d left THAT open, but I couldn’t remember for sure.
I walked into the room for a second to see what was going on – if anything obvious had been stolen – and I swear on the Good Lord of Butter that all of the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Prickly-style.
That’s only happened to me a handful of times.
Each time it’s happened, it’s been for good reason. I’ve learned to trust it. If something makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, something is amiss.
I ran out of the room.
Now what the fuck do I do?
I went back down 9870 flights on the elevator to the front desk. Closed for the night with a jaunty note that explained I could find help at Tower One, which meant hoofing it back down a zillion hallways. So I did. My cell phone reception was pathetic. Walking was the only option.
I limped to Tower One where I told the person behind the desk about what had happened.
Security was called. I asked them to walk up to my room with me to check it out, red-faced and embarrassed as shit. I mean, how do you explain to someone that you “just had a bad feeling” without sounding like a total fucking lunatic?
I joked as they walked me back that I’d seen too many episodes of Law and Order: Your Doesn’t Suck As Badly As Theirs to simply ignore the open doors. Security assured me that it was just fine: that I’d done the right thing. Still, I felt like an assjacket.
Fifteen minutes later, we were up at my room, where security gave me the green light: no one inside. I thanked them for their time and they left.
But I couldn’t shake the creepers feeling.
I sent Mandi a text explaining what had happened (trying not to sound as frantic as I felt) and then limped all the way back to the MGM Grand, where I sat in the food court until Mandi arrived. Safety in numbers.
Never did find out what had happened. Probably never will.
I guess what happens in Vegas DOES stay in Vegas.
———–
Have you ever had the hairs on your neck stand up like that? Do you trust it when you have That Feeling? Can I have some chocolate ice cream, please?
We live in the country, I mean out there country, Alabama. I grew up in SE Wisconsin, city girl and am not prone to getting jittery about things. But husband travels some and I was home with the kids alone one typical night and after putting them to bed walked out of their room into our main living space and the front door is WIDE FREAKING OPEN. I mentioned we live out there, as in our driveway winds 500 yards from a back road and surrounding us is acres upon acres of forest pine. I don’t consider myself a gunslinger, but let me tell you, I GRABBED up the pistol we keep (safely from the kids & that’s right lurkers don’t even think of visiting us, we have more-it is Alabama after all) and walked through the entire house until I was absolutely, positively, no questions, sure, that I must have not shut and locked it all the way when letting the dogs out earlier in the evening and “the wind” must have caught it just right.
All I could think about the rest of the night was Truman Capote. House alarms are a comforting thing in my world.
I would kinda like one of those now. House alarms, not guns. I’d shoot myself in the foot by accident.
I always trust my gut (or hairs or whatever funky feeling that I get). I firmly believe that you don’t walk into a room when you have a funky feeling. Never under any circumstances investigate scary/spooky noises on your own. I believe following my instincts has kept me from being axe murdered or terrorized by the boogey man on multiple occasions!
ME TOO. I’m certain of it.
I feel that way every time I walk around my house after the lights are out. The man who lived in our house before us died at work. Literally cut in half. I’m convinced I’m going to run into his glaring torso someday. Once in awhile I get that feeling in the put of my stomach… Actual fear… and I run to the bedroom.
Okay, I am totally going to have nightmares because of this comment!! A torso?? That’s absolutely frightening, and a great idea for a horror movie! 🙂
Oh. My. God.
What kind of security is that? No one at the desk? No wonder people break into the rooms! You were lucky no one was in your room. Maybe you should have put up a sign “Stealing gives you syphilis.” And a picture of Dexter.
Yes. That sort of thing has happened to me on plenty of occasions. Like you, I’ve learned to roll with it.
Glad you were safe!
I read somewhere (like in grad school or something) that your gut actually has the same number of neurons as a cats brain. So really, your inner pussy was just taking care of you, always, always trust your inner pussy.
I read somewhere (like in grad school)that your gut actually has the same number of neurons as a cats brain. So it was just your inner pussy keeping you safe. Always, always listen to your inner pussy!
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! I will ALWAYS listen to my inner pussy.
Hell yes I have and it’s always a prelude to something I don’t want to deal with. That’s bloody frightening, I probably would have woken everyone on that floor up.
OMG, very similar thing happened to me at MGM. It was the adjoining room door though. Freaked me out and I made them get me a new room. I was staying on my own.
Aw, man! I want that instinct. I am a true product of the civilized world — no more instincts or survival skills at all. I grew up in an insulated pool sheltered from the harsh climes of natural selection, and would probably walk blithely into the open mouth of a dragon if there was a sign saying that the FDA had approved its safety. Especially if it was recommended as a vacation destination on a friend’s blog or something. So, write “It’s safe1” in two different places and I’ll volunteer to be your lunch. I would probably have cruised straight in to the room, assuming I’d left it open, and been mugged so fast I’d have suffered from friction burns. Good on you for retaining some jungle instinct!
BWAHAHAHAHAH! BEST COMMENT EVER.
When I was in college, a friend and I came home to our rental house one time and found a light on upstairs that we knew we hadn’t turned on (and there might have been something else amiss I think, though I can’t remember what). So we left and called campus security. They searched the place but found nothing. But my friend and I were sure someone had gotten in. We stayed with some friends that night — didn’t feel comfortable staying at our own place.
Turns out we were right about someone going into the duplex. It was our landlord’s husband who had come over to fix something. And left the light on.
Oh my gosh. I TOTALLY forgot about that. Probably because I was drunk as shit back at the partay and was uber confused when Mandi said “OMG WE’VE BEEN ROBBED AND BECKY MAY HAVE BEEN KIDNAPPED AND WE NEED TO GET BACK TO THE HOTEL RIGHT THIS SECOND OR WE’RE ALL GOING TO SURELY DIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!!!”
Well, maybe it wasn’t THAT dramatic. But maybe close! What a fun weekend, though. Even with you, our little gimp, tagging along!
Ooh, that would have scared the doodah out of me. I would have insisted on a good looking male cop to sit with me till I felt better. That would have taken a while.
Yes. Once, I came home from work to find the door to my then apartment all fucked up because someone had tried to break in. They broke the lock and messed up part of the wood. Must have been scared off before getting in. Also, about a year ago, I was home alone with my son, during the afternoon. One of us was going potty, I can’t remember who. I could see the front door from open bathroom door. All of a sudden, I heard the sound of someone checking to see if the door was open and saw, or so I thought, the front door handle wiggling. It was locked, but my heart jumped to my throat at the thought of someone trying to break in. There have been break-ins on our street in the past. I kept the phone near, kept a lookout for anything unusual, etc. Never saw anyone.
I ALWAYS, ALWAYS trust my gut. If the hairs on my neck stand up like that, I RUN! I have found that for whatever reason, I have a pretty strong 6th sense regarding many things (including an uncanny knack for seeming to know when people’s pregnancies, but not my OWN, are not going to work out). I live outside Orlando and home invasions are COMMON. We have an alarm but my husband travels for work and a gun (keot safely, of course) is going to be my next purchase. The stories I read are crazy.
I can eerily “feel” other people’s pregnancy vibes, too. It is freaky. Especially when 3 people I care about lost babies at different stages. It was as if I knew all along.
Yup, that’s exactly how it is for me too but it’s weird that I don’t have that same instinct for myself. Right now I have a bad feeling about another friend who is pg with twins. It’s unsettling.
Didn’t you ever read “The Gift of Fear”? Fear is a God-given defense. Trust it always. It keeps your ass in one piece, which is how I prefer my ass.
Well, I actually did spend a night in a building that was built on a Native American burial ground and to say that it was haunted was an understatement. My friend and I (who were alone there) got VERY little sleep, what with the disembodied footsteps and things flying off the walls. Someday I will write a blog post about it, and then everyone will think I am a more than a bit strange, but almost any story from my early 20s would invoke a lot of head scratching. Let’s just say it was an… interesting… time in my life.
Sounds like double door double penetration.
Bow-chica-wow-wow.
When I was a kid, we lived in an old duplex with a creepy laundry room the the basement. You had to shut the lights out and run 15 feet through the dark to get out of there and back up the stairs.
Years later, when we were talking ghost stories while vacationing on Nantucket (see: Indian burial grounds and getting chills on a summer day) my mother spilled the beans and told my someone had hung themselves in that basement. Always trust your instincts, Aunt Becky. Even if you feel like a slice of ass.
ABSOLUTELY trust your gut, always! You did the right thing, Becky.
Way to go with your gut! I think first instincts are highly underrated. They exist for a reason and shouldn’t be ignored. Also, you never know about that Indian burial ground thing. Bad juju. I used to manage a corporate office building built on an Indian burial ground and people died in it ALL THE TIME. Heart attacks, random shootings. In a high-rise office building. Two people drowned in the one-and-a-half-foot-deep fountain. Sounds like a bad movie but … it happened.
I am all too familiar with the creeper feeling. Mostly due to my clumsy cat.
But years ago I had a roommate who I had NO idea was a friggen drug dealer (who am I to wonder why he always had good weed?) and I came home and there were THREE scary dudes in my apartment. And my roommate? He wasnt there. They assured me that it was ok for them to be there. Not to call the cops or leave, they were just waiting for him. NOT LEAVE??!! Are you fucking serious. When they wouldnt leave I started crying. They finally left after it turned into an ugly sobbing cry with begging and told me to tell my roommate to get in touch with them as soon as possible.
I kicked him out the next day.
we were visiting the in-laws when my daughter was 2; summer time and they have a pool in the back yard. Without thinking, I took off my watch and locket (with photos) when we arrived (not something I ever do!) You guessed it… my daughter ran too close to the pool and fell in! I was about 3 steps behind her, so she was fine, but I went swimming fully dressed. I have never done it since (and my kids have never fallen in again!)
Glad you listened to those creepy feelings, Becky!! My experiences have left me ALWAYS trusting my gut. When i lived in an apartment next to the university of houston (“3rd Ward”–ghetto)….i had a creepy feeling right as i was approaching my front door. I looked up, and in this big tree, right by the front porch, a guy was crouching, ready to jump down…shit, i ran like hell. Then I was in Germany going to school, living in a dorm, using the bathroom down the hall. I had that weird feeling that someone was watching me. I’m sitting on the toilet, and i bend down to glance under to the next stall….and 2 hairy eyeballs are staring back at me!! Sweet baby jesus! I ran like hell again. (turned out he had raped a girl in the shower). So, i pretty much trust my gut…You definitely did the right thing Becky!
Always, I mean ALWAYS trust your intuition. If you feel something is wrong, it probably is!
Sounds like Elvis’ ghost to me.
I was about 19, taking a shower, got a creepy, creepy, feeling. Shower was at ground level with high jalousied window at nose height. Very creepy feeling. Slowly turned… and stared into two of the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen! In my head, I said, “What are you doing there?” Out of my throat came four blood-curdling screams! But, it was trusting the feeling that made me turn. End result: landlady heard screams, police came, much longer story. Maybe I should blog on this?
The gut is always right. I know within five minutes if someone makes me feel creepy. Some people can hug me, some people I can’t even look in the eye. Run if you feel like running, hide if you feel like hiding, and find a different doctor if you don’t like what one is telling you about you/your family. Love your blog!
I absolutely, positively always listen to those feelings that make the hair stand up on my neck. There have been times it has been right and I don’t want to chance ignoring it and getting myself in trouble.
I don’t get the hair standing up on the back of my neck, I get the 2nd-person thoughts that don’t feel like my own suddenly pop into my head. (The crazy runs deep here.)
Stuff like when I’ve decided not to take my two kids with me when I drive an hour down the highway to pick up a friend and instantly the thought pops into my head, “Good. Now they won’t be in the car with you when you have the accident.” Not that they won’t be in the car with ME. They won’t be in the car with YOU. WHEN YOU HAVE THE ACCIDENT.
A couple of hours later, I hit a patch of black ice doing about 90 kph, spun 180 degrees and wrapped the rear passenger-side quarter panel around a post. I hurt my back and neck, (neck healed totally – back not so much) but the girls would have had their heads flung against the passenger side windows. And I don’t want to think about what that would have done to both of them.
Same thing happened when I saw my favourite aunt for the last time. “Better take a good long look at her. It’s the last time you’re going to see her alive.” So I did. Couldn’t hurt. Might help.
A few weeks later, the phone rang while I was washing the supper dishes. “That’s your mother calling you to tell you your aunt died.”
And it was. She had died from complications of an operation I hadn’t even known she was going to have.
So, yeah. When those kind of thoughts pop into my head, I listen. I listen HARD.
ooooooooh, that pre-cognition stuffy is to be heeded. I also had the thought about my mother…”you will go over there and find her lying on the cement floor dead..” (almost all of her house was carpeted). A few months later, on a sunday, after she got home from church, i went over, as usual. We talked and laughed as i helped her unload her groceries. She went in through the garage door to the basement….a few minutes later i tried to folllow. She was lying unconscious right behind the door, on the cement. She probably had a stroke and fell as she started to go up the stairs. She died the next day.
while you were practically killed everyone else was back at the party watching 80’s porn :/
That happened to me a couple months ago. I was staying in Buffalo in January (yes, Buffalo in January), and I came back to my room to find the door open. My room was at the end of a hallway. I was 12 kinds of freaked. I called the front desk to come clear my room, too. Still slept with the lights and TV on.
I’d totally have freaked out, were I in your shoes. Doors open, when you were pretty sure that you left them closed, and nothing obviously stolen – weird, at the very least. Very weird.
I often lament the modern horror film because the “alone” feeling that most of the good horror flicks require simply doesn’t exist in today’s world. Everybody has a cell phone, and everyone feels like a complete ass when their battery dies. Coming up with a plausible reason why you can’t call someone to get yourself out of danger gets more & more complicated.
Creee-pyyyy. I would’ve been freaked out too. And I’m the scardiest person ever. But on the other hand my group pulls some pretty random and outlandish pranks on each other. Vegas was no exception. Lol!
I can’t think of a time when following my instincts saved me or anything. I DID come home a few months ago to find the apartment door not just unlocked but wide open, but with all the lights off. I went downstairs to tell my boyfriend the door was open (he was down in the parking lot) and he went rampaging up the stairs to check it out (apparently he does not get prickly neck hairs about this kind of thing). We figured out that I had “locked” the door, but I didn’t turn the key far enough, and then I pushed on the door to see if it was locked, since I think I had failed to lock it properly before, so I was trying to be conscientious, you see. The bolt was just enough engaged on the strike plate to resist my push, and then I walked away and the door came open. We weren’t gone long.
Also: every single time I go down to our laundry room I am on high alert for the Hoboraper, since the laundry room is down two flights of stairs from any apartments, and accessed from the sketchy carport through a door that does not close properly when it’s cold outside. I think I would be a fool to go blithely skipping down the stairs without pausing to listen, and checking the closet in the laundry room. But I think that’s logic, not instinct.
Well, I guess that didn’t really answer the question, did it?
When I was fifteen, about a million years ago, I was in the grocery store, had just turned up an aisle, when my hairs went up and I felt like I needed to go find my mom right away. I glanced up to see a huge, creepy looking guy with dark, unkempt hair watching me. A few weeks later, I saw his picture on the news: a serial killer who snatched his last victim out of a grocery store parking lot. It was Paul Ezra Rhoades.
I’ve definitely had that feeling and I always feel a compelling urge to RUN THE HELL AWAY!
I’ve definitely had that feeling – trust it! Never felt it as strongly as when we were looking at houses – went into the basement of one that looked like it was right out of the horror flick “Hell House”. We skeddadled right out of there. Too bad – the kitchen was awesome. But that’s probably where the owner served up his victims. Blech.