Below the Normal
The Ouija Board for Episode 207 of “Ghost Hunters” as recarped in Above the Normal, in which Mme. Blahblatsky and the Talking Mongoose attempt to ascertain the entertainment value of the episode, if any.
TM: Wha? Above the normal? Paranormal means above the normal?
MB: I don’t know. Jason has his own dictionary, I guess.
TM: Above the normal. That doesn’t make any sense.
MB: I guess it does in Jason’s world.
TM: Oh, right. That world where we differentiate between paranormal activity and haunted.
MB: Also, situations and scenarios.
TM: And the world where you can lunch on Harry’s New York style wieners in Altoona.
MB: ???
TM: That lunch in “Altoona,” when Jason and Grant were eating platters of chili dogs, and I found out about Altoona’s claim to Texas wieners for you? Harry’s was not a place in Altoona. It’s in Warwick, Rhode Island. I’m outraged.
MB: You weren’t outraged about the Wilmington Experiment.
TM: North Carolina didn’t involve lying about lunch.
MB: So what did they do, exactly?
TM: They were in Altoona. Jason and Grant supposedly were having an executive lunch and bitching vociferously about the Mishler Theater “disaster” and Brian losing “thousands of dollars of equipment.”
MB: I remember that.
TM: Well. They weren’t in Altoona at all. They were back in Rhode Island. The lunch was a total hoax. Think of all the heartbroken fans who have searched Altoona fruitlessly for Harry’s New York System Wieners so they could lunch where their idols had downed dogs.
MB: They had Texas wieners instead?
TM: They must have. I wonder if Pennsylvania Texas chili dogs are better than Rhode Island New York chili dogs? Probably. Rhode Island food is weird. Now, about that door.
MB: What about it? Actually, I have some questions. What is it about doors and ghosts? Do ghosts open doors to get attention, or do they just feel compelled to open doors? Do they only open doors for an audience? Did they know that camera was there? Or do they open doors any old time? What’s the deal? I want to know.
TM: I was going to say it all seemed a tad too convenient, if you know what I mean.
MB: I don’t.
TM: A double-doored closet? Come on.
MB: Too convenient for what? “Foul play?” Crap. You of anyone should be able to see the flaw in that. It’s too easy. Too obvious. Why? How? Who? What about the sound of the thumb latch being used an hour later that rendered Donna and Jason babbling idiots?
TM: Look here. In 1997 Norma Sutcliffe was claiming her house was sans spooks. “Nothing happening here,” she said.
MB: So now you think she’s gone to pretending it’s haunted when it isn’t? How is that logical? Maybe she had just moved in. Maybe she was embarrassed. Maybe she didn’t feel like telling the Providence Journal she had a haunted house, and she got over it later. A lot of people don’t tell strangers about their ghosts. Some think you might be asking for trouble doing that. Because you kind of are! Given the way most people feel about ghosts. I blame the Reformation, you know.
TM: I bet the Warrens weren’t Lutheran.
MB: Look. A clothes hanger “leaped from a closet.” Maybe the same closet.
TM: I like the bleeding orange. Cool stuff like that never really happens, damn it. Well, what is Ouija going to say about this episode? I don’t think I paid enough attention to vote.
MB: I don’t know. It didn’t make me want to scratch my eyes out, because of the door, but the Tanguay thing was so lame.
TM: Poor Tanguays.
MB: Indeed. Video games and electromagnetic-hypersensitivity – if that doesn’t sound like the bottom of the barrel being scraped.
TM: They haven’t blamed heavy metal music or swamp gas yet.
MB: That list is already getting too long, you know. We need another system.
TM: I have a brilliant idea. How about normal, above the normal, and below the normal?
MB: What’s normal?
TM: Boring but not scratch-your-eyes-out unbearable. No worse than watching paint dry. Above the normal is better than watching paint dry. Below the normal is bad enough to make you prefer watching paint dry.
MB: Okay, give this one an above the normal, but not too much! And now, I really am bored. I’ve had it. I don’t want to do the next damn episode.
TM: You want me to do it.
MB: I don’t want to do it at all. I want to do something else.
TM: How about Top Chef? Top Chef is on!
MB: No. I mean – another episode. An interesting episode.
TM: Oh. Well. Second season?
MB: I don’t care.
TM: Ah. I’d suggest the third season Manson murders one because I am so looking forward to seeing you get apopleptic about K-2 meters, but as it so happens, I just watched one that will make your hair curl.
MB: I like curly hair.
TM: Mmm. Well, this is the bad permanent kind of curl. The permanent that makes you shriek and throw things and consider shaving your head.
MB: But not boring?
TM: Nope. Not boring.
MB: Pft. Bring it on.
Next, Mme. Blahblatsky finds herself transported into the middle of the fourth season!
The Ouija Board 