You can now search previous New York articles -

  

Index   Previous Letter    Next Letter

The Ghost and the Singapore Dollar

A few month's ago I lost my watch.

It was a particularly nice watch. I bought it in the duty free shop in Melbourne several years ago.

I used to put it on my bedside table when I went to bed at night, and put it back on when I left for work the next day. Then, one day in May I went to look at the time while I was on the bus going to work. It was gone.

"Not to worry", I thought, "I must have forgotten to put it on". But that night when I returned home, it was nowhere to be found.

Even then, I thought it would turn up. Maybe I'd put it down to answer the phone. Or left it in the bathroom. Or something ... "It must be somewhere", I said to myself.

Well it is still gone, and so have several other items.

I had two friends from Melbourne visit in September. B had one of those special locks you can use on your luggage on airplanes in the US. US security can open them, but no one else. I saw the lock hooked on her suitcase latch, as she packed and we talked about old times the night before she left. The next day as I sat there watching her doing her last minute packing, I noticed her searching around. "Where's that lock? - it was here last night!" she said.

We searched high, we searched low. It was nowhere to be found. B unpacked her case - perhaps it had fallen inside, although that seemed physically impossible.

We never found it. I have since vacuumed and looked under cushions, behind chairs. She called me from Melbourne. It still wasn't in her luggage, in her handbag. It has disappeared. Completely.

The next day my other visitor - C, called. Had I seen her camera? She was back in Melbourne and must have left it in my apartment, as she hadn't used it after leaving Manhattan for Melbourne.

"Nope, it's not here", I told her. "I know as I've searched the apartment for B's padlock.

Another mystery.

A week went by. No watch, no padlock, no camera, but other than that, life was normal. Until of course the next thing went missing.

I have a pair of glasses that I leave in my handbag when I am home. I only use them for work and reading on my way to and from. Another pair says at home. It was a Saturday, a few weeks ago. I went to read something and looked for my home glasses. I'd only had them on a few minutes ago. I couldn't find them, so used my work ones. "They'll turn up", I thought. "I just can't remember where I was when I last took them off." But like the watch, the padlock and the camera, they never did.

Nothing else has gone - well not anything that I've noticed. But an even stranger thing has happened.

Last night I did my laundry. One of the things I washed were my pale blue cords. I'd worn them two days ago. As I always do, I checked the pockets for old tissues. I have a habit of jamming them in my pockets and so I'm always very careful to take any out before washing. No, nothing there, so I washed them and put them in the drier after that.

Once my drying was done I folded everything and put the pale blue cords out to wear in the morning.

Today. Sunday morning. I got up and put on my cleanly washed pale blue cords. As I staggered to the kitchen for my first-of-the-day caffeine fix, I noticed a feeling of paper crackling in my back pocket. I stopped and felt my backside. Yes there was paper in my back pocket. What could it be? I'd checked those pockets just eight hours ago! I must have missed an old shopping list. It didn't feel like tissues.

I reached in - and pulled out - a Singapore dollar.

How did it get there? I haven't BEEN to Singapore since the seventies. B and C didn't go via Singapore on their way here. In any case why would they put a dollar in my pocket, and even if they did, I would have noticed it after they left. Or last night when I checked for crunched up tissues.

I am stumped. Do I have a mischievous ghost in the apartment? I don 't believe in ghosts. But I suppose that's neither here nor there as far as the ghost is concerned.

A friend just rang. She asked what time it was. "Oh, I don't have a watch", I told her. And then it all came out and I explained the disappearances - AND the Singapore dollar.

"He's obviously a traveller", she told me. "A luggage padlock, a watch, a camera ... it all fits in. And he left you the dollar to say thank you".

Yeah! Sure! That's all I need.
A travelling ghost.
A travelling thief ghost.
A STINGY travelling thief ghost.

One lousy Singapore dollar!

Till next week,

Kate Juliff
New York
November 2005