Should I Call an Exterminator or a Ghostbuster?

By Gordon Hopkins It is just a few days until Halloween. Apropos of the season, I have spent a better part of this last month trying to figure out if my house is haunted.Or possibly just infested. While animals don’t have that big, old brains that humans are blessed with (well, some humans, anyway), it is known that animals have much keener senses than your average two-legged bipedal humanoid. What they lack in cognition, they make up for in observation.I’m not just talking about hearing and smelling. Dogs in particular are well known to sense “bad” in a person. There is a famous quote circulating on the internet, “I’m suspicious of people who don’t like dogs, but I trust a dog when it doesn’t like a person.” It’s usually attributed to Bill Murray, although, like most internet “facts,” that appears to be so much eyewash. Cats are more mercurial than dogs, so it can be harder to determine why they don’t like someone. Nevertheless, they will clearly not trust certain people upon first meeting, either running away or hissing.Some people say this extraordinary sense extends even to other realms.Did you ever have a dog bark at an empty room, or a cat hiss at a blank wall? Domesticated animals reacting negatively to the presence of evil yet unsensed by humans is a classic, even cliched method spooky movies use to build tension, giving the audience a clue that something is wrong. But does it show up so often in movies because it happens in real life? Or have we seen that same scene so many times that we interpret our pets’ strange reactions through the smoky lens of overused movie tropes?I don’t know the answer to that. I only know that, for the past month, my cats have seen something I haven’t, and it has been driving them crazy.Which, in turn, has been driving me crazy. Like most people, I imagine, I have a routine I follow when I drag myself home after a long day at work. One of the first things I do when I walk in the door is greet my cats. Unlike dogs, cats generally don’t jump up and down, excitedly, and paw at me as if I’ve been gone for two years. They do, however, greet me at the door, giving me a look that says, where have you been and where is our dinner?So, after I dump my coat and briefcase, I crack open and can of food and feed the cats. Then I plop down on my sofa, turn on the TV, and then ignore whatever is playing on the TV and start checking my email on my phone.After they finish eating, the cats come into the living room and stare at me.At least, that’s what I thought they were doing at first. A few weeks ago, after having finished this daily ritual, Archie (the fat, orange cat) suddenly leaped over me in a burst of uncharacteristic energy. He landed on the back of my sofa and seemed to be clawing at the wall.I painted my living room about a year ago and have not yet rehung my artwork. Yes, I know that’s a long time. I’ve been busy, okay? So, Archie was clawing at a blank wall. I put down my phone and demanded, “What the heck are you doing?”He ignored me (because he’s a cat) but seemed to calm down. He stared at the wall for a while and then climbed down off the sofa.I went back to my emails. After a while, I realized Groucho (the black cat) was staring at the wall behind me.At the time, I put this down to “cats are weird.” But it kept happening. Every day, one or the other of my cats, and sometimes both, would seem to go nuts, attacking a blank wall, or sometimes just looking at it with the intensity of a fat guy at a buffet. My first thought was they were chasing a bug. I don’t have a major issue with bugs in my house. Sometimes I get ants, but they are usually relegated to the kitchen and, anyway, a bit of peppermint oil on the kitchen counter chases them away, too sweet. (I’m serious. peppermint oil is miraculous, plus it leaves your kitchen smelling like a candy cane.) I do get spiders occasionally but, hard as I looked, I couldn’t find any. It must be the season. Normally, I am not the least bit superstitious (knock on wood). Still, I couldn’t help but think about all those stories of animals seeing ghosts. Would any self-respecting ghost haunt my little house? Behind that wall used to be a sorta, kinda greenhouse. I had it torn down and, when finished, it will become another room. Am I being haunted by the ghosts of houseplants?Last night, I finally figured it out. Once again, while I’m checking my email, the cats start attacking the wall behind me. I turned my head without putting down my phone and realized for the first time my phone was casting a reflection on the wall. For the last month, my cats have been chasing that spot of light my phone projected on the wall behind my sofa.So, I guess my point is, leave work at work. Also, cats don’t see ghosts. They’re just dumb.

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