#PoundTake
Urban Legend
Part IV
Congratulations! If you’re seeing this that means you’ve lived to read the last iteration of: “The Brown Family Urban Legends.” I do have to be honest with you. My family has witnessed some scary shit, but not as scary as life could be if Trump gets a second term, so this is your reminder to VOTE if you haven’t done so already. As I told y’all before, spooky shit follows our entire family. I heard stories when we were kids that our older female cousins dabbled in witchcraft. Even at eight or nine, I thought they were full of it. Now that I’m older, I believe they might have hexed or used voodoo on some people. That might be why spirits flock to us. So for this last story, I am referring to my brother’s word on what he experienced with the paranormal.
Back in the simple days of 2003, we had these very large and not so convenient devices called “landlines.” At the ripe age of 14, my brother was a social butterfly and a ladies man. He used our house phone daily to set up “skate dates” with all the little thots of the neighborhood. We had two phones in our house. One was in our living room on our main floor. The second was in our rec room in the basement. The phones were very basic and did have much technology on them at all. You couldn’t be on the internet when trying to use the phones due to us having dial-up internet. You also had to make sure the phones were placed correctly on the hook to dial out. Shouldn’t be too hard to master, right?
One day my brother came home from school (he was in high school, so he got out earlier than I did). He wanted to make a phone call. He was on the main floor and picked up the phone and didn’t hear a dial tone. He figured he must have left the basement phone off the hook since his room is down there and that’s where he spends his evenings. Thinking nothing of it, he goes downstairs, and sure enough, the phone is off the hook. He hangs it up and proceeds back upstairs. He picks up our living room phone again, and still no dial tone. Thinking how negligent he must have been to not put the basement phone on the hook properly, he walks back downstairs and makes sure he hangs the phone up and makes sure he hears a dial tone before he rushes upstairs. Once he made sure everything was working as it should, he attempts to make another call from our living room phone…STILL NO DIAL TONE. My brother got really annoyed and confused, he ran downstairs to find that the basement phone is dangling by the cord as if someone just got done using it. His anger and confusion turned to fear and worry. My brother didn’t make a call that day. In fact, he was so creeped out that he didn’t make calls home alone until we got cell phones.
There are a lot of different traits and traditions that make each family unique. Ours just happens to be otherworldly. These four stories are just a glimpse of what creepy encounters my family has experienced. Imagine hearing all these from your older brother when you’re nine. I was seeing faces in my window at night for years. I’ve grown to realize that these stories and any “spirit” that comes with are a part of my family’s legacy. Hell, for all I know it could be my ancestors in the afterlife following us around and pranking us. If you think I’m lying, hang around me and my family to see for yourself. Happy Halloween, and stay spooky, friends!