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NEW YORK - EXILED TO AN ISLAND...WITH GHOSTS

In the final stages of dealing with the fact that

my apartment is the Hellmouth and ruined my life

, I have decided to relocate to an island. On this island (yeah, it's Staten Island…whatever), I can sit with my feet in the water and glare over at the Manhattan skyline, thinking therapeutic thoughts about how my life is in shambles. It's cool though–I can guarantee that my new neighborhood doesn't smell like turds, which is what I'd grown accustomed to in Brooklyn.

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Last week I went to fork over the money for my new place. Moving into new spaces is a sort of creepy feeling to me because everything smells weird and I'm afraid to touch anything until I've done a rigorous cleaning and removed all DNA left behind by the previous tenant. After giving my new landlady a handful of sweaty cash, I asked her in passing if the place was haunted. She looked at me like she had really been hoping for me NOT to ask that, and then went into the following paraphrased monologue:

"Well, I mean, I like the idea of ghosts, so maybe I just saw this because I wanted to see this, but sometimes when I go down into the basement, I see two black ladies cooking on a stove. This house is 120 years old so I always figured that there were spirits that still lived here, but other than the black ladies … I haven't seen anything. Sometimes I like to walk around at night and picture this house filled with people, beautiful ladies in long dresses, coming up and down the winding staircase. I think that would be really cool."

The look on my face during all of this must have been priceless. If there is one thing that I'm afraid of–more than getting abducted by aliens or raped–it's ghosts. I know that ghosts exist because I was raised Catholic and there is nothing the Catholic religion likes more than convincing young children that they are constantly surrounded by evil demons from hell who want to tempt them and chomp on their supple flesh. But I am saying right now that if these black ladies come up from the basement at any time and try to have a rap session with me, you will hear me scream from wherever you are.

I dare anyone

out there to arrange a time to explore my new basement at night with me. You can record me losing my shit and use it as your outgoing message.

KELLY MCCLURE