The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

Again, before you go logging off having decided I am some kind of kook - let me explain. I am not visited by ghosts. There are no wailing Jacob Marley apparitions appearing in my bed chamber on Christmas Eve. There are no ancient sea captains making madcap intrusions into my serene cottage life. Scooby and Shaggy do not pull up in the Mystery Machine to find out who is making all the Fudgesicles disappear from my freezer. It's not like that at all.

I recall the first time I even noticed anything.

When Dad died, I was in a particularly challenging situation at work. (Did I mention that I am in Human Resources? People do the most fascinating things at work!) I had a whole cast of characters reporting to me at the time, but two of them had been uncommonly malcontented troublemakers - who in addition to having a bizarre preoccupation with other peoples' business, were also Mean People. Mean people with no boundaries and fantastical delusions about their own power and importance in the company.

And while I had no respect or admiration for either of them, and was constantly coaching them (Imploring them? Demanding? Insisting under penalty of tar-and-feathering?) to redirect their energies to more productive endeavors, I could never definitively assign blame to either one of them for any of the heinous crimes against their co-workers they were reported to have done - or instigated. It was infuriating. They were very good ass-coverers, and it didn't help that they were in collusion and each would gladly cover the other's (considerable) derriere.

But as the saying goes, I gave them enough rope and each eventually hanged herself with it - just a few weeks apart, and in such a way that neither could even begin to cover her own hiney, much less the other's.

Don't get excited. This is not where I think Dad interceded. This was all a-swirl while Dad was slowly letting go of this world.

But the first one to walk the plank had some grandiose ideas about revenge (she must know Sandy) and used her inside connection with the later terminatee to try to make my life miserable by digging up "data" and providing it for her to use against the company in a half-baked law suit.

Not my happiest moment in the office.

And as if I didn't have enough to deal with, I was suddenly preparing the company's defense. And in the middle of all the data collection, and statistical analysis, and depositions and preparation - my dear old Dad passed away. And while the turmoil at the office was exactly the thing I needed to distract me from my grief, it was enough to shake my confidence. Big time.

A few weeks later I was off to court.

And along came Dad.