I am not one who generally believes in possession. I’m not even talking the demonic kind here, just simple possession by an inanimate object of some type of spirit. There have been two times in my life I believed an object was possessed – my first car (a 1984 Chevy Cavalier) and my son’s playmat.

My Chevy Cavalier was undoubtedly possessed. I would drive to school in the mornings, and very bizarre things would happen. Sometimes, the car would just decide to accelerate. All of the sudden, the accelerator would depress, and car would speed up and attempt to slam into other vehicles. For those of you wondering, I did not have cruise control on the car. I also noticed that on Thursdays, if I put the turn signal on while the radio was playing, the windshield wipers would turn on. What was particularly difficult about this is that the wipers were in the OFF position, so I had a hell of a time getting the wipers to stop! Also, if it was raining and you hit the brakes while turning left and the windshield wipers were at a certain speed, the blinkers would start flashing. Yes, the car creeped me out. I came home from school a number of times telling my mother about my possessed car. At one point, she was so irritated by my insistence that she agreed to take my car for a week to check it out. Her prognosis? My car was possessed! We took it to the car dealership, and after running a complete assessment… they informed me there was nothing wrong with my car. A few years later in college, my entire electrical system crashed and it turned out that Chevy recalled the computer chip because of similar problems. They also had to install the cruise control stick on my car . . . because the manufacturer default setting inadvertently had the “inactivated” cruise control feature set to on, so every time I hit a certain speed, the cruise control would try to “resume.” Regardless of these logical explanations – I still firmly assert that my car was possessed.

My son’s playmat is one of those Tiny Love Gymini Lights and Music playmats. It has all kinds of animals on it, and there is a little section of the mat that lights up and plays music if you turn the switch. Well, there enlies the problem. You see, it still plays music (randomly) when it is in the off position. Late at night when we are all upstairs (and the mat is off) it will suddenly start playing. Sometimes when Micah is sleeping or playing on it and it is off, the music and lights will start up again. At times, when the dog walks across the mat and it is off, the music and light show begins. In fact, we rarely turn it on anymore – the randomness of the mat when it is off is FAR more entertaining! The only logical explanation I have? Possession, of course!

Have you ever believed an object was possessed? If this entire post worries you, don’t bother to call the authorities. They already know I’m nuts – remember my talking breast pump?