It was scary time at the Stately Wayne Manor last night and fear was in the house.

The Wife and I were laying in bed going through the very Brady ritual of reading our respective books by our respective bedside lights and everything seemed nice and normal. At some point I went and grabbed the cat and brought her into the mix where she lay on The Wife, submitting herself to various pettings and stratchings. Nothing strange there, it was just another normal night...or was it?

(it wasn't)

For, you see, our cat, Dagny, is usually overly affectionate. There is often much nuzzling and head-butting (very similar in this respect to the WWF) and she won't stay still, often to the point of wanting to throw her against the wall (but that would be wrong). Normally, normally this is what she would do...but this was no normal night!

(see, told you)

Dagny lay there like a good kitty but she was clearly somewhat distressed. Her ears were back and she looked none too happy. This was not the little ball of freakishly excessive energy we were used to but, you know, cats are dumb. I didn't make much of it. And then it happened.

(pause to build tension...)

(aaaaaaand...go!)

Getting up for a pre-sleep pit stop, The Wife tried to pass the cat over to me. But she wouldn't go. She starts growling and hissing and so we pull her back. No more growling. Move her back towards me and she is all stiff legged and angry and then when she is forced onto my chest (just to see what happens) she jumps straight up, claws out, and bolts.

Hmmmm...not the sort of behavior we've come to expect from the cat. Naturally our first thought is that some sort of animal has infiltrated the bedrooms (this, btw, is not a good thought to have at bedtime). So we start peeling the covers back bit by bit and it takes all my self control not to do the little mincing "oh god there's a rodent in our bedroom" dance and put on a nonchalant face. It's pretty hard to recover from a mince, so it has to be avoided at all costs.

All the covers are off and so far no animals. We check under the bed, under the mattress, around the bed and nothing. We put the covers and sheets by the cat to determine if they were bothering her. Nothing. I go lay on the couch to see if she will come to me away from the bed. No problem, she's fine with Couch Jason.

And so, naturally, we're confused. Who wouldn't be? So far we've eliminated large animals and intruders and have determined that the calls were not, in fact, coming from inside the house. What was left? Hell if I know. All I knew for sure was that I didn't want to wake up in a tub full of ice with my kidney removed.

In the end, we are both scientists, so we decided to do some further experimentation. We re-assembled the bed covers in an attempt to recreate the situation. Then, I lay on my side of the bed and we tried to put the cat on my chest again. Same response (claws and generally hissiness). The Wife on my side of the bed? Sure, the cat has no problem with that. Me on her side of the bed? That's okay too. So apparently the problem is with me being on my side of the bed.

The answer was pretty obvious at this point. Clearly we had some sort of ghost and that ghost had positioned itself right by my usual sleeping place. I wasn't too thrilled about this, but it was getting late and so I figured I was just going to have to live with it. After much debate about the relative merits of sleeping with a ghost versus sleeping in the living room, I decided it would be best to go with the Scooby Doo ending.