It’s time for one of these. I’ve never had one before so y’all are witnessing an important milestone :)
- I’m not comfortable revealing a name on here. So I prefer to just be called Ooooooh, BUT I do not expect you to get the right amounts of Os.
- My pronouns are she/they, and as far a gendered terms, go ham. I’m a girlie. I’m a guy. sister, brother, fella, lad, lass, lady, it doesn’t matter to me. Also I’m bisexual.
- 20 years old. I don’t mind minors interacting really, my blog isn’t very suggestive.
- USAmerican, from the midwest.
- AuDHD
- My main fandom is Dead Boy Detectives. You will also see a lot of Interview with the Vampire (waiting for all of TVL to drop before I get AMC+, no spoilers pls), Dan and Phil, Project Hail Mary (Movie), and The X-Files (only on season 4, pls no spoilers). As well as a random splatter of other things.
- I am also currently doing a series detailing my reactions to watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time! Find it under the tag Ooooooh’s BTVS Watch-Along (No spoilers pls). I AM NOT ABANDONING THIS. It just takes me a while to watch new television shows, so it might be a BIT between posts.
- Any fanwork inspired by one of my posts is SO welcome! Just tag me please. I want to see!
- Also ask box is open. I promise I’m nice, chat with me please.
I’m pretty sure my workplace is haunted, which is a crazy thing for a fucking strip mall boba shop to be? Okay, so some background context for this to make more sense.
Cast of “Characters”
Me - I’ve worked at this location the longest out of the current people that work here; I’ve been here three and a half years. I’ve also had a life-long interest in the paranormal and I’ve had experiences/encounters before.
Coworker 1 (C1) - My new(-ish now) boss and the current owner. If you’ve seen me complain about my boss before, it wasn’t this one. She worked at different locations in the (small) franchise before buying this one, so she hasn’t even been here a full year. She believes in the paranormal, and has described encounters that she’s had before.
Coworker 2 (C2) - C1’s younger sister (and a 1/4 owner), but she worked here before C1 bought it. She actually started only a few months after me, and we’ve worked together with just us a LOT. She actually appears in a few of my Autistic Awareness Month prompt answer posts, where I called her M. She also believes in the paranormal.
Coworker 3 (C3) - Actually my best friend yay! She worked here last summer, and has continued to this summer. So she’s been here for two summers, but doesn’t work for us when her school is in session. She’s a skeptic, but “open to the idea of ghosts”.
Areas of The Shop
The Front - This is the area of the shop where customers sit, and it also includes behind the counter where we take orders and make drinks. We also have a bench behind the counter that we sit on during the day.
The Back - This is the area of our shop that is a combination of some storage and our break room essentially. We also sit back here a lot, and it includes like our big fridges and sink.
The Very Back - This is just additional storage, as well as where our bathroom is (the only one is employees only). It’s also where our heavy back exit door is.
Okay, now on to our Weird experiences that make us think Something Is Up Here, in no particular order-
- The most common, but also low-level, odd thing that we experience is something I probably wouldn’t even think about if not for everything else. The chairs out front where customers sit make rather audible creaking sounds when you sit down or shift in them, and we’ll hear those noises often when the shop is empty. Surely, they can’t be just settling that much? And, sometimes one will be so distinct, it could ONLY realistically be the sound of someone sitting down.
- I’m at the shop a lot, and I’ve been alone in it over the years more times than I can count (I’m actually alone in the shop as I write this sentence). I’m comfortable here, despite my naturally jumpy disposition. This is my second home, and if I’m uncomfortable working alone, it’s usually a costumer with Bad Vibes making me feel that way. Except, I’ve had 2 episodes of such terrible bone-deep fear and dread while alone with no explanation, and they didn’t fall under how my anxiety usually presents. The first time was one of the earliest (but not the first) times I had closed alone. I was cleaning up and just couldn’t get the thought that “If I stay here any longer, something bad is going to happen” out of my head, but I was determined to finish all of my closing duties (because my old boss Would’ve Killed Me otherwise), so I just kept doing my tasks. Until finally, it was time to clock out and I was just taking one last scan of the front from the register to see if I obviously missed anything, and I swear to God I was certain that I saw someone standing behind the curtain that separates the front and the back. The curtain doesn’t go all the way to the floor so you can see a person’s lower third. And, because I would be the first person to die in a horror movie, I go and move the curtain to check. Luckily nothing was there, so I clock out and hustle out of there. The second time I was gripped with unexplainable terror was much more recent. I was alone in the shop while C1 was taking a grocery trip during a shift we were working together, and it was a rather slow day. I served maybe one or two customers while alone. But, I just couldn’t let go of the thought that I wasn’t alone in the shop/I was being watched. I was sitting in broad daylight (with big windows), thinking “Something is in here with me. I’m being watched.” in an almost paranoid way, and it didn’t help that the chairs were being noisy. I was so relieved when C1 returned an hour or so later, and I got to tell her about the Sudden Awful Feeling.
- Another thing I’ve experienced a lot while working alone is rushing out of the bathroom or doing something in the back to greet a costumer because I heard someone talking just for there to be no one in the shop. The speaking is always too indistinct to make out what’s being said.
- C3 also reported hearing the sound of someone whistling up front while there was no costumers recently.
- C1 told me that there’s been a few times that she’s been closing alone, and heard the heavy back door shaking like someone was aggressively trying to open it (but it doesn’t open from the outside). I responded that I hadn’t experienced that, and then I promptly did next time I was closing by myself.
- C2 and I were chatting in the back, probably over 6 feet away from one of our shelves and not facing it, when we heard something behind us either falling to the ground very hard or being thrown. I investigated and found a (thankfully not glass) cup on the floor that was not near the edge of the shelf. We were speaking at normal conversation volume and standing still, so doing nothing that could’ve caused a vibration strong enough to make that cup jump off the shelf.
- I was sitting on our bench up front last week, and the sound of running water caused me to look up from my phone. Water was dispensing from our hot water machine like someone was pushing down on the button. I didn’t know what to do so I called out to C1, who was in the back, and just repeated “Why are you doing that? Stop doing that!” until we both watched it stop. We took a look at the machine, but couldn’t find out what caused it to randomly dispense without anyone touching it. I’ve never seen it malfunction like that before in the years I’ve used it, and it hasn’t done it again so far.
- Uh, whatever it is knows my name and has started mimicking voices. I was washing dishes in the back while closing with C3, and very clearly heard her call out from the front “Hey, [My Name]?” but when I went to see what she needed, she told me she hadn’t called for me at all. And then, a few days later, C3 and I were sitting up front on the bench, when C1 comes through the curtain and says “C3, were you just in the back?” to which we informed her that C3 had not been. C1 looks scared and tells us that when she was in the bathroom, she heard C3 right outside the door go “Hello?” like she was going to ask something. C3 and I hadn’t even been talking up front.
- There’s a door between the back and the very back that we always keep open, and we have what was originally a plant stand holding it like that. C1 and C2’s brother was in the shop to help out and was returning from the bathroom, but when he almost reaches the curtain to the front, he hears something and looks back. The plant stand had somehow moved and the door was closing on its own. He swears he didn’t bump the stand, but also that stand isn’t light enough to move completely out of the way of the door with an unintentional bump.
- We take the spoons out of all of our flavor powders at the end of the night and wash them. Well, one time, that job was left to an employee who no longer works here. The next day C2 finds a spoon in the strawberry powder while she’s opening so she reminds the employee to make sure they grab all of the spoons to clean. The employee insists they did, and C2 kinda lets it go because forgetting something and then insisting you didn’t is normal. That night, it was C2’s job to clean the spoons, so she grabs them all to wash and double-checks before she leaves that there was none left in the powders. The next morning, C2 comes in to open and finds a spoon in the strawberry powder again. But, she knows she didn’t leave it there.
- We have one of those neon signs with our shop’s name on the wall for people to take photos. Our old owner/boss used to never turn it off, but when C1 took over, she started shutting it off at night to save on electricity costs. Recently, C1 was in the shop early to get started on making boba and tea, and whatever is in there was active. She saw a bag moving by itself and the chairs were being noisy again, and it felt like they wanted attention. So, she asked “Are you mad at me? I haven’t done anything for you to be upset.” and then thinks about the sign being off as something that’s different, so she follows up with “Wait, do you want the sign on?”. She turns on the neon sign and all of the activity calms down for the morning.
- This morning, we entered a shop that felt like it was FREEZING. The thermostat read out that it was 60 degrees Fahrenheit (about 16 degrees Celsius), but C1 said she didn’t know why it was so low, because she didn’t change it. The thermostat isn’t following a set schedule of any kind, nor do we believe it changes based on the temperature of its environment. But, if it did, it’s not significantly hotter today than it was yesterday, actually it’s cooler. There was no reason for our thermostat to drop 10+ degrees from where we usually keep it. C1 raised the temperature on it again, but everything still feels wet because of all the condensation.
- Over the last few weeks, we’ve found a few of our metal mixing spoons bent, like bent enough that you can see it just looking at the spoon. We’ve had most of these spoons for years, but it was not damage created over time. It was like they were normal one day and bent the next. We wash dishes by hand, so it’s not something banging them up in a dishwasher. Also, I don’t think any of us are strong enough to accidentally bend one of these spoons and just not notice. They are solid metal. But, I’ll keep looking for an explanation on the damaged spoons that isn’t paranormal in nature.
- C1 was in the bathroom, and the LOCKED paper towel dispenser seemed to suddenly drop open and make a loud bang directly over her head. But, when we tested it again, if you opened the front of the dispenser and just dropped it, it would bounce a few times before coming to a rest. However, when it opened in the bathroom with her, it only did the initial drop + bang, which seems to suggest (to us) an intelligent force was controlling its descent. ALSO, IT CAN’T OPEN WITHOUT ITS KEY! Ya know, the key that was on a shelf on the other side of the bathroom. I even went into the bathroom and purposely hit the paper towel dispenser from several angles to see if I could get it to drop open without the key and I couldn’t, which suggests her unintentionally bumping it wasn’t the cause.
- A TV I turned off during closing turned itself back on again several minutes later.
first community watch: i think maybe donald glover is intentionally playing troy as a closeted homosexual
4th community rewatch: troy barnes though similarly superficial at first is such an incredibly complex character and through his cartoonish and exaggerated shenanigans he maintains his level of realism and similarities to real life queer people that overcompensated for so long they feel unconnected to themselves and this is explored in such a complicated but subtle way that though not obvious at first feel way too intentional to not mean something when piled up
37th community rewatch: i think maybe donald glover is intentionally playing troy as a closeted homosexual
one of the many victims of streaming is the dvd homepage where they included lil games, bloopers, director commentary, and behind the scenes. I miss u gurl
