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Why Haunt This Place? My Biggest Gripe With Ghosts
Questions about ghosts that don’t make sense
Every year around Halloween, local news stations and tourist traps roll out the red carpet for ghosts. Suddenly, every building built before 1980 has a high likelihood of being invested with the spirits of the dead. This is to be expected, but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t puzzling. For example, my local news station recently ran a story about how an old theater is being haunted by a ticket taker who died in the lobby (GASP) in the 1950s. Sure, most people lean into this stuff in October to get into the season, the same way we all pretend to believe in Santa during the month of December. But the ghost thing goes deeper than that.
Depending on what survey you look at, between 30% and 45% of Americans believe in ghosts. Roughly 20% of Americans claim to have seen a ghost or experienced a ghostly entity. A whopping 9% of people claim to have a tangible fear of ghosts. Again, this is fine. I’m sure I have some beliefs that make people scratch their heads. (In fact, I know I do.)
What frustrates me is that I don’t know how ghosts work. No one has settled on ground rules for ghosts, which makes the whole thing frustratingly opaque.
Why does the ticket taker at the Tampa theater have to be stuck in the exact spot…
