Last night I saw a medium.

I was skeptical. But my uncle is hands down ALL IN ON THIS. She was 100% Uncle Buck certified.

He met this woman during a ghost hunting expedition like 20 years ago and swears by her. He took his girlfriend to one of this ghost hunting friend’s medium readings and she was sold and at Thanksgiving dinner this year, we all sat around the table talking about ghosts. Well, that’s all dinners when I’m involved, but ghosts were discussed. And then this medium lady was brought up. My mom was sold.

I was intrigued. She is said to have spoken of things no one could know. My mom wanted in. I wanted in, because, you know, ghosts.

Quick aside, if you’re ghost hunting and you’re a medium, do you need all that fancy equipment? EVPs? Heat maps? Night vision goggles? Ouija boards? I’m serious. Where’s the line between like, my super haunted apartment in Denver and Oda Mae Brown? Although, she seemed spooked a lot of the time, so, SAME. Okay, take Long Island Medium. She’s always laughing and snapping her nails on the granite counter tops in her fancy home and blaming farts on her clients’ dead loved ones. Allegedly. But I know what I saw. A scam of farts. (By the way!!! I heard farts last night, more on than in a minute.) See, when I lived in Capitol Hill with a super nasty early 1900’s Denver socialite ghost that hated me, I rarely laughed. Well, I still laughed, but I also peed myself more times than I care to admit out loud.

Point is, mediums are super relaxed and laughing about farts, while Zak from Ghost Adventures is always yelling and getting scratched and possessed. To be fair, if I was a ghost, I would be more likely drawn to the blonde lady who’s laughing and farting, but I would also love to scare the crap out of Zak Bagans. But also as a ghost, which adventure do you choose when a group of charlatans rolls through your spooky abandoned parlor with cameras and tape recorders?

Okay, back to me. We walk into this metaphysical book store that smelled like patchouli and random purple and yellow aura. There were several stones for sale, candles, and a lot of books with levitating yogis in front of expanding light and galaxy brain meme looking backgrounds ranging in topics from my dead loved ones to constipation. It sounds like I’m knocking this. I’m not knocking this. I was just friends with a lot of potheads in the late 90s and well, this is similar to what hanging out with them was like.

We are escorted into the back room which was painted in a light purple hue, floral curtains on one wall, fold up chairs lined up in rows on the floor, and a Christmas tree set up in the back. It kind of felt like where the gangsters held their meetings in that funeral home in The Wire. We sit down, My Uncle, his girlfriend, my mom, and me. And we wait, and wait. People start talking about who they hope will come through. And we wait. The medium ghost hunter lady is milling about. I like her, she’s got a good vibe about her. Like I could be friends with her. But I’m skeptical, right? Like, I’ve watched those debunk videos on youtube about mediums and their cue reading skills. How they plant people in the crowd to make themselves look legit. So the whole time I’m hearing everyone talk amongst themselves about dead people, all I can think is, you idiots. She could be taping this somehow! You’re giving her everything she needs. At this point, my mom turns to me and starts talking to me about the very minute details of various dead people she hopes come through.

Good job on the stealth op, Mom.

Here’s the thing. I know, scientifically or logically or whatever, that ghosts don’t exist. Like it doesn’t make sense. I also HIGHKEY believe in ghosts. Because I’ve seen them. I have lived with ghosts. Like, I don’t wish ghost living on anyone. And yet, at the same time, I don’t know how it’s possibly a thing. Like I get the whole thing about energy transference and how energy doesn’t just go away, like it has to go somewhere. And where else would it go other than ghosts and ouija boards? But I also get the whole thing about how an energy field being off in your home because of negative ions or leaking water pipes, or something else that makes scientific sense that I’m not looking up right now or I will never finish this post, how our human brains interpret this fluctuating, abnormal, unbalanced energy as danger! but since we can’t physically see danger, our brains form hallucinations on the interpretations trying to make sense of the whole thing and we see ghosts. Or something. But I’ve seen ghosts live in the ghost flesh and if what I saw was only my mind’s hallucinations, give my brain an Oscar.

So we’re in this room last night, at the back of a psychic book store and about 45 minutes after we sat down, our fun medium lady stands in front of us, cracks some jokes, says hi to my uncle, hugs a guy in the front row, waves at a lady in the back who drove over from Aurora, which Long Denver Medium knew either through paranormal or non-disclosed normal means, and off to the races we went. Apparently the ghosts chose me to go first.

She looked me directly in the eyes and asked me who the female with the J name was that was sitting on my lap and saying we were very close. Was she a friend? A sister? And my heart pounded and my neck did that tightening, painful thing right before you bawl and I bit the side of my mouth hard so I wouldn’t cry in front of everyone and then I took a deep breath and gave out a shaky “My sister, Julie” as she went on about how funny she is and she was with my great-grandma and grandpa and a whole slew of other accurate details that I can’t remember.

Then she went around the room for the next 2 hours, making other people cry with her questions and remarks about smells and inside jokes with the beyond, a murdered ghost came through, a ghost that spoke only Spanish, a ghost asking about a lady’s new hairdo just like in the real Ghost, a ghost telling a woman babies were coming, I don’t know, it was a lot. Someone kept farting loudly, a lady behind me burped. Everyone laughed together, cried together, passed around a community tissue box, it was great. I could’ve done without the farting though, but maybe that’s just a thing that summons the ghosts! I’m not here to judge the process.

But here it is, the next day and I feel like maybe it was all a scam. I mean, it was worth it, I had a great time, but maybe the emotions flowing through the room, the comradery, the ill-timed farts, maybe these were all a dripping pipe in the house type thing. The emotions made us hear truths that weren’t there. Made us believe in hope from the other side. Helped out by tidbits of information Long Denver Medium was able to pick up from the people she knew and the things she over-heard as we sat in around gabbing during the pre-show. I don’t know, but she likely made a TON of money doing this thing.

New career goal. Maybe I can get fake acrylic nails, work on my stand-up routine, and charge people to sit in a room with me and cry about stuff. I don’t have a psychic ability, but I do have ghost apps on my phone that are a hit at parties and I am a professional Ouija board user. This could totally work. Alright, who’s in?