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Dime 60
January 8, 2009
Found – on the floor at a bar
I hadn’t seen one of my friends in about 6 or 7 months, so when he IM’d me the other day, I suggested that we meet up for dinner. I was also dying to play Big Buck Hunter which I had played once about two months ago and immediately got addicted to. I knew he was staying in the same neighborhood that was just chock full of Big Buck Hunter machines, so we set up a date.
My original plan was to go out for a casual dinner of burgers at what was rated the best burger place in the neighborhood, and then walk across the street to the bar where I had played Big Buck Hunter a few months ago since it was a fairly quiet place that didn’t get too crowded and crazy loud.
Everything went according to plan (the burgers were some of the best I’ve ever had) until we walked across the street to the bar that I had been to. Instead of a nice quiet little corner bar, it was packed to the rafters with people yelling, cheering, and carrying on over the football game that was playing on the flat screens. I was in total shock. We looked at all of the people through the large front windows and it didn’t even look like two more people could fit into the room. It was then that my friend suggested we head over to another bar a few blocks away that he knows also has Big Buck Hunter. He had never played it before and after all of my talking about it, he was curious to play.
The second bar was perfect. An old and dark dive bar that looked and felt like it had been in business for 70 years and hadn’t been redecorated once. There was odd artwork on the dark red concrete walls that looked like it was painted by local neighborhood artists. There was an L shaped old wooden bar that was at least 50 years old if not a whole lot older. There were two gumball machines on the wall that were full of peanuts of which you could buy a handful for a quarter. The tables and chairs were all old and mismatched and some I recognized as vintage 1960s. The sides of the pool table in the middle of the floor were covered in years of graffiti and old stickers. The only music came from a jukebox in the back so when no one put any money in, there was no music. Songs were 2 for $1.00. And of course there was Big Buck Hunter standing quietly in a back corner.
I should also say there was also a big old white sign with black art deco type lettering hanging on the back wall above the bathrooms. It was dirty and grungy and looked like it had 40 years of accumulated smoke and soot on it. It said Sick Room. Something about that sign caught my attention and I couldn’t help but wonder where it had originally came from. Where did it originally hang? What kind of establishment used to hang big signs that said Sick Room and designated rooms just for the sick? Was it an old hospital? A sanitorium? For some strange reason I was drawn to that sign. Anyway…
There were about 6 or 7 people spread out at the bar, but there were two empty chairs together at the bottom of the L. It was as if they were waiting for us. We sat down, took off our coats, and ordered drinks. I sat sitting sideways with my back to the brick wall (about 2 feet away) instead of in the back of my chair. My friend sat to the left of me (but he was really in front of my since I was sitting sideways) and we spent some time talking and catching up.
About 20 minutes into the conversation I felt someone behind me, they had brushed against my back and there was pressure on the back of my chair as if someone was leaning on it. I thought maybe someone might have dropped something in the dark corner which they were coming back to get, or they wanted to squeeze into the bar. I turned around to look and see what was going on, but when I did, no one was there. “That was freakin’ weird”, I thought as I sat there and tried to make sense of what just happened. I looked all around the bar and the only other people there were either sitting at the bar or sitting at the tables along the far wall. No one was within 15 feet of me. My friend must have noticed a strange expression on my face as he then asked “What’s wrong?”. I told him about what just happened. After saying it out loud, I realized and stated “I think I might have just felt a ghost.”
I still felt weird as I sat there. Like someone was still standing behind me. I made my friend switch seats with me. I told him to sit exactly how I was sitting in that seat, sideways, with my back towards the wall, and let me know if he felt anything weird. I climbed into the seat where he was sitting and I turned sideways to my right to face him. I looked at him to notice any strange expressions and I looked all around him to see if I noticed anything strange. That was when I saw this dime on the floor behind his chair, the chair I had been sitting in. It was as if what I felt was someone bending down to put the dime on the floor. I got the chills and knew immediately someone or something had indeed touched me. I jumped down, grabbed the dime off the floor and said “See! It’s a dime! I always find dimes where some kind of weird stuff is going on. I really think someone was here. What are the chances of finding a dime here too! I don’t think it’s just a coincidence.”
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