Dear Tabby,
I wouldn't normally write to an online advice columnist, but my friend referred me to you and we're really desperate. For the past few months, we've had horrific disturbances right in our home. Cabinet drawers banging open and shut, objects flung through the air, beds levitating, there's just no end to the weirdness. Sometimes there are unearthly howls and screeches that would bleach your hair to hear, and we have even glimpsed scary dark shadows in corners and closets. Let me tell you, Tabby, that SHAPE, my God, not only inhuman but hardly even humanoid! Why, it's gotten so bad that lately our cute little Persian pure-bred long-hair kitty cat, Svelty, seems totally spooked every morning at sunrise - as though she's been chased around the living room by an incubus all night. What a disgusting thought! Poor little dear, we are simply at our wit's end. Whatever this thing is, it seems to eat like a pig (clears the fridge every night), smell like a skunk, leaves some kind of soft, woolly substance all over the furniture, not to mention the awful scratch marks dug across our beautiful wood floors. My husband and I are totally frazzled so even though he poo poos the idea that this could be some kind of supernatural entity, still when my friend told me there's a thing called a poltergeist that can attack a house, and when she mentioned you as some kind of astral advice expert, I figured I had to write in and beg you for an answer. We can't take much more, we're at the breaking point!
- Teetering On the Edge
Dear TOE,
First, let me express my deepest sympathies for the travail that you and your loved ones have experienced. I want to state right at the outset that there can be no, I repeat no justification for poltergeist activity in today's world. That kind of medieval behavior went out with witches and exorcists, and I for one stand resolutely against any and all poltergeists. My personal crusade against this evil abuse won't end until every poltergeist of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. ... *cough* ... Now, to address your particular situation, even though as I have stated, I would love to see every poltergeist hung from the highest yardarm, still there are certain practical measures we'll need to adopt to resolve your case. See, in order to defeat a poltergeist you need to learn to think like a poltergeist. (And you've come to the right place, because there's nobody better at that than me!) Get into their heads, charm and disarm them, lure them out in the open as it were.
Therefore, I have drafted the following set of "Tabby's Anti-Poltergeist Expedited Wrap-up Obligatory Reductive Measures" (TAPEWORM program), which I make available to you below absolutely free of charge. Please immediately implement the following anti-poltergeist points, some of which may seem, at first blush, somewhat counter-intuitive, but you are working with a professional now (me), so get cracking:
1. Double-stock the fridge every night before bed. The following substances (the "Three C's" as they are known in the ghost-busting business) have been found to be particularly effective at poltergeist de-infestation : Caviar, Champagne, and Catnip.
2. Please put a few more pillows on your sofa.
3. You mentioned Svelty, your pure-bred Persian pet. She sure is a doll, isn't she! Er... what I ... mean to say is, a single pet is a lonely pet, prone to all kinds of hysterical upsets. She probably needs company. Please consider adopting companions for her. Are her sisters from the same litter available?
4. Leave wads of cash in random spots throughout your home. A
poltergeist encountering a stack of large-denomination bills in an
infested house is usually observed to stare in fascination, approach
them cautiously, grasp them fervidly, examine them closely, and run
screaming from the scene. Replenish as necessary until infestation
eases.
5. Tell your husband to put away that shotgun! Poltergeists are completely ethereal so randomly blasting buckshot at the intruder will do nothing more than turn your walls (and those of the next three adjoining units) to cottage cheese.
Distribute these five anti-poltergeist measures to your neighbors. If you all join together in a common TAPEWORM-based anti-poltergeist effort, you greatly increase the odds of eventual victory. In unity there is strength!
Should you have any questions on the exact application of the TAPEWORM program to your particular infestation, or if for any reason it does not yield immediate results, I am available for on-site consultation to you and your neighbors at standard industry rates plus per diem expenses. In the meantime, I wish you every blessing and I am confident that your evident firm resolve and clear-thinking, energetic determination will be more than sufficient to impress any potential poltergeist with the need to think twice before messing with you.