The truck scale inspection of a Southern Maryland Sand and Gravel business began as any other scale inspection, but it didn't end that way.
The initial test was uneventful other than the scale exceeding three times the allowable tolerance causing me to "condemn" it. I removed it from service and placed a lead and wire seal with a condemned tag through the indicator's electrical plug so the scale could not be used until repaired. I left it and all seemed normal.
Normal until I ran into a scale service technician who asked me if I had been back to the business yet. I said, "no," and asked, "why?" He responded, "because the place is haunted. They have a ghost!"
I laughed and shrugged it off, but the next time I was there all of the office trailer's windows were broken out from the inside and there were scorch marks on the wood panel walls. Upon entering, I asked the scale operator, "is this place really haunted?" He quickly responded in a sharp tone, "yes and I don't want to talk about it."
I went about my business of testing the scale and found it to be out-of-tolerance again and again condemned it. As I was going over the paper work with the scale operator I saw a metal band (the kind from cheap promotional pens) fall to the floor and then a coin rolled by me.
The scale operator saw the look on my face and explained in a matter-of-fact tone, "its the ghost, she makes things appear and disappear. She stole the owners pipe the other day." I had to go back two other times and during those times I saw more things appear seemingly out of nowhere including the owner's missing pipe. I was skeptical and dismissed them as pranks since others were in the office with me and could have made the items seem to appear.
It was during my last visit that I was convinced the ghost was real. The scale finally passed inspection and I was alone in the office finalizing everything when it happened. As I was applying the approval sticker on the indicator, one of their promotional pens appeared in mid air to my left and shot forward with enough force to sting my hand sharply when it hit.
No one was in the office. No prank could have been played and the sting of being struck by the pen was real. I went outside to give the paperwork to the owner and while outside I heard a loud bang from the inside the empty office.
I went in alone and I saw a screwdriver impaled into the wall where I had been standing. I removed it which took some effort and tried to reinsert it into the wall next to the hole it left. I couldn't. The wall was too thick for me to penetrate it.
I left and a few weeks later I ran into the service technician again who updated me on the ghost. Apparently they figured out that they had started a landfill on an old grave site of a woman buried there. They surmised it was her ghost. They stopped the landfill operations and the ghost activity stopped.
It made sense to me. The ghost didn't bother me while I was condemning the scale but allowing it to be put back into service probably angered her and that is why she attacked me.
During my career I had some run ins with angry people about removing their scales from service, but the ghost is the only one that actually physically attacked me.
Comentarios