COWBOY BOB AND THE KIDS

Hello, all:  Ready for more Cowboy Bob?  

Next in line behind our relative for most run-ins with Cowboy Bob is our oldest daughter, whose room saw the most paranormal activity before it was even finished.  Once the house construction was finished and the two bedrooms upstairs were outfitted with more than a cot, the girls began visiting from college on weekends. Their guest bedrooms face opposite each other across a wood-planked landing upstairs.  The downstairs foyer is stone which my hubby fashioned into a beautiful round floral pattern, and the curved staircase is carpeted, along with the office that separates the two bedrooms.  I mention all this because each of these surfaces makes distinctly different sounds when a ghost is walking across them.  The carpeting is a muffled thump, thump as Cowboy Bob either treads up or down the stairs or walks through the office on his way to our outside patio, but there is no mistaking the wood landing and stone floor footsteps.  The stone is more of a dead weight (no pun intended) whereas the wood landing steps are sharp . . . and for the girls in their bedrooms, imminent.  

So many times when the girls have been visiting and it's very early morning (not the girls' favorite time of day to be awake) either myself or my hubby have heard those sharp footsteps on the landing, then the muffled steps on carpeting in the office, and we've run upstairs to see who it is.  Finding nothing, of course, but opening the two bedroom doors and seeing both daughters cutting major zzz's.  

Our younger daughter has heard these footsteps outside her door, on the steps or in the office, but for whatever reason Cowboy Bob has mostly left her alone.  She's seen his 'shadow' pass quickly through the kitchen, getting an outline of his form as he stomped out the closed back door, but it is our eldest who has had more of a problem than just hearing footsteps on the landing, which, by the way, anytime they are heard they are almost always headed for her room!  

We've run up to check on our eldest in the night when, from our bedroom right below her bedroom/bath, we hear what sounds like her body crashing onto the floor, things breaking . . . she'd always be out like a light in her bed.  Nothing at all broken or out of place.  But she's heard the crashing and footsteps in her bathroom so much that she will never sleep in the room without a light on and the television turned way up (we can hear it from below it's so loud.)  This masks the noises in her room at night just enough so she can sleep.  But Cowboy Bob continues to enjoy opening and closing her bedroom or bathroom door periodically, which, though she has seen it happen while awake more than once, it usually occurs while she is asleep.  She's heard something and awakened to find one or both doors standing wide open more times than she can count.

She grew tired of the nonsense one night when it happened three times over the course of a couple of hours.  Tossing back the covers she got up out of bed a last time and went to the bedroom door, shutting and locking it; mumbling, "There.  Just try and open it now!" 

I digress with a word of advice here:  I don't think 

it's a good idea to double-dog dare a ghost.  

Chances are they'll take you up on it!  

Our eldest shut off the bedroom light and crawled back in bed, but no more than got settled under the covers when loud, furious breathing manifested out of nowhere against her right ear, the ear closest to the door. This was the first time our daughter felt true terror in her room.  She slapped at the airspace beside her ear as she jumped out of bed, stumbled to the door and threw it wide open, saying; "Fine, you win.  I'll leave the damn thing open!"

  It was from that point on she always had to have a light on and the television going.  She has said there are only two things creepier than lying wide awake in your bed late night/early morning and listening to heavy footsteps headed for your room:  One, having those footsteps stop right in front of your bedroom door, and two; hearing the entity making those footsteps furiously breathing beside your ear.  I'm thinking I agree with that, and so do our daughter's friends, who've had their own experiences.  I'll go into more detail in my next post; "Cowboy Bob and the Company."  Later, friends.