ghost stories

When I was in high school, my friend's mother used to tell us scary stories that she heard as a girl growing up in Germany. Maybe it was the accent on top of hearing stories you hadn't ever heard before, but those stories were pants-stainingly scary. They always had a little something, some detail, for your imagination to hold onto so that you couldn't sleep for weeks after hearing one of those stories. One of the tales I remember vividly involved a desciption of the reaper. He didn't wear a hooded shroud like we all imagine. No, this repear wore a long black cloak and a black hat with a large feather. And he would come to you and leave his hat for you as a calling card; you saw the hat and then he took your life. So imagine my surprise when I got into my car yesterday and looked in the rear view mirror and saw a black felt hat with a feather laying in the back window. My heart stopped beating and I know I stopped breathing for a few seconds, staring at that hat and hearing my friend's mother's voice telling her story. Then I remembered that Jen was wearing a hat when I picked her and her girls up at The War Room on Friday night...and things were right in the world once again.