Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Occam's Razor

In an earlier blog titled “Don’t Tell Ruth” I wrote about a peculiar happening in the downstairs bathroom of the famously haunted Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs.
Well. Now I’m really freaked.

See, a friend from out of town wanted to see the Crescent.  This past Sunday she and I drove up the mountain from Fayetteville and, being as how we’re both ‘woman of a certain age’, our first priority when we arrived at the hotel was to locate a bathroom.  Just as in the original event, the upstairs bathroom was unavailable.  This time it was being cleaned.  Last time the doors of all three seemingly empty stalls were locked.

So this Sunday as on the previous Sunday several months ago, I trooped downstairs to the bathroom in what was once the morgue. It’s now a high-class, perfume-scented spa, which should either exorcise any ghosts or, at the very least, make them sneeze.

Well, but this time the moment I opened the door to the bathroom the hairs on my arms begin to stand at attention. See last time when I stepped in the room, a cold breeze washed over me.  I attributed that to an air-conditioning unit coming on just as I opened the door. Also a yellowing lace curtain fluttered at the window. Again I attributed it to the air-conditioner.  Then, when I flushed the toilet it made a noise like the groaning of a…well…ghost.  Afterward as I tried to leave the room I mistook a permanently walled up door for the actual door, had a moment of panic and then finding the correct door, found it momentarily swollen from the rains and stuck shut.

Okay.  Are you still with me? See this time the entire bathroom was different. First of all, I took a close look around. There is no air-conditioning unit in that room.  Secondly, there’s no lace curtain and no window where I remember it being from last time.

No curtain. No window.

There is a walled in door but the actual door is the sort that swings freely with well over a half inch of light showing at both the top and bottom.

So what the Sam Hill happened?  I admit to having an extremely overactive imagination.  But I’m not so far gone that I don’t know the difference between what I invent and what I actually experience.  So? Ghosts or some hallucinatory experience which occurred only during the time I was in that bathroom?

Which brings me to Occam’s Razor.  I could give you the Latin, but frankly if you’re the sort that’s impressed by that sort of thing you’re probably not a follower of this blog. The jest of the principle is “If you have two equally likely explanations for a situation, the simplest is most likely to be true.”

Therefore, with a heartfelt bow to Ruth Burkett Weeks, I conclude – there are ghosts at the Crescent Hotel.

4 comments:

  1. Oh yes there are ghosts at the Crescent. Take it from a former employee. The big mirrors on each landing going up the staircase? Many's a time I've seen someone behind me in the glass, but turned around to find there was really no one there. Eeeek! Happy Halloween!

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  2. Well, I had already decided not to to spend Halloween night at the Crescent Hotel, but thanks anyway for the heads up on that ghosts thing they have going on there.

    That night, Eddy and I will be camping out in an old cemetery where it's safe.

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  3. Oh, Pammy, how many times must I tell you, "don't go to the bathroom downstairs!" I suspect you stepped back in time when there was a window and curtain.
    And Mikeylo! I didn't know you worked at The Crescent! I'm jealous.
    Jack: good luck with that cemetery thing.

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  4. Woo-hoo! I figured out this posting thing. Watch out!

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