So I was thinking, as one often does, about what I would haunt if I had to be a ghost.
That’s normal, right? Thinking about that? Anyway…
If I had to choose someplace to haunt, I wouldn’t pick a mansion, or a castle, or a shack in the woods.
I’d pick a department store.
Bear with me…
There are actually several benefits to selecting a department store to haunt. Foremost is the broad selection of vict… um, customers to interact with. Why hang out waiting for people to visit your haunted property when you can hang out at Walmart and have them stream in by the hundreds?
Lots more variety that way, too. A cabin would snag you a string of young lovers, with perhaps the occasional Unabomber. A department store lands you everything from Bitchy McMoneybags to Herbie the Hick, and everything in between.
Indeed, one could spend hours in rapt silence, simply watching the various oddballs interact with each other. Watch the rich folk chuckle at the rednecks puzzling over smartphones in the Electronics section. Watch the rednecks point and laugh at the rich folk fearfully skittering past the hunting gear in Sporting Goods.
That’s not even to mention the gossip. I think that’s half the reason people go to these things: Just to track down other gossipers and spread the love. Eventually you could hunt down the regulars and get updates on who’s dating whom, you won’t believe what the neighbor did to his dog in the backyard, etc.
You’d get bored with that, I’m sure, but you’re in a freaking department store. Full of stuff. That you can look at. You can even play with it, if you do the poltergeist thing.
Little Jimmy being a snot? Wait until Mom looks away and pelt the little fucker with a tennis ball. It’s not like he can tattle on you, and even if he could, do you really think Mom is going to believe him? Well, of course not.
If beating small children isn’t your thing, there’s always the old folk to mess with. Wait until he’s examining the prune juice section and take old man Jenkins’ pack of Magnums out of his cart. See how many times he goes back for another box before he accepts his senility and goes home.
Lastly, the fun never ends! People (eventually) go to sleep in the haunted house. Visitors leave the castle. Young lovers bone for the fortieth time. But the department store? It’s open 24/7, baby!
Sure, it gets quiet in the early a.m. That just gives you time to plot your next hilarious practical joke. Or you could always go watch TV in the Electronics section. You know, maybe catch a movie or something.
I’m surely just scratching the surface, here. Walmart has to be, like, Disneyland for dead people. Go ahead and keep your creepy graveyard, I’m headed to Wally-world.