Strangely Naked

You, yes you, reading this, for your own sanity and comfort, you need to make sure I don’t die with any unfinished business. And don’t even think about murdering me because I have about three dozen unfinished projects that I keep that way just to combat those who would try to prevent me from becoming a ghost by murdering me. I would be a terrible ghost and none of you want to take the chance that I’ll choose to haunt you.

I’m a morning person. Let’s just start there. You want to sleep in? Tough luck because I’ll be rummaging through your refrigerator and stealing your laptop to hide in the bathroom and pretend I’m pooping while you’re frantically slapping your snooze button.

What happens when you try to engage in a little “naked going through the motions” as my parents called it, or some special “NSA hacked my webcam and is watching me fiddle my diddle time?” I’ll be there. I don’t know if ghosts can masturbate, but I intend to find out. Is that goo from you or is that my ectoplasm? You’ll never know. Or maybe I’ll just hang out by your ear and say disapproving things. Not “disapproving” in the sense that I disapprove of your technique. “Missionary, again!?! Don’t you see the bored looks on both of your faces?” Or “What’s up with your choice of porn? Tsk. You know your grandmother is here next to me seeing you all hunched over, right?”

I wouldn’t hurt anyone. I’m not a physical person. I don’t even like to touch myself in the shower (I smell great, everyone, I swear), but I’m alright with psychological trauma, particularly if it’s unintended. For instance, I’ll jack your air conditioning and make sure it’s cooler. What? I don’t know if specters can feel heat or cold and it’s much easier for you to add layers to keep warm that it is for me to take off clothes, which I don’t know I can do as a spirit. In addition to being naturally warm and wanting things colder, I’m naturally clumsy and cuss a lot. Not like I stub my toe and curse a little, I curse for joy, for fear, for complacency, for boredom, as a replacement for “um” in sentences, when I find there’s no more cheese in the house, and sometimes just when I think it’s been too long without (I

miss those words dearly when we’re separated too long).

Then there’s the frustration that you won’t be getting any pictures of my apparition. I don’t like pictures of me. Don’t get me wrong, I love the way I look, but I hate pictures of me (I have that special body dysmorphia that makes me think I look good in mirrors but then I see a picture and want to vomit . . . which is also something I want to try and do as a ghost, vomit) and I can only imagine that being amplified upon my death. So, I’ll go full incorporeal if someone whips out a cell phone. However, I might de-opaque myself for family portraits taken on your estate or in Walmart as well as any old-timey flashbulb pictures you’re willing to commit to film.

If I were you, I’d perfect cloning technology because I’m probably going to need to harvest some organs that are bound to tap out.  We’re also going to need to get on these self-driving cars soon because I’m not a great driver. Oh, and one of y’all need to get cracking on this Global Warming thing because I generally run hot and will probably die first in the coming apocalypse and you don’t want to spend the last moments of humanity with a gaseous ghost hanging around you like an albatross (did I mention my prodigious gas).