Paranormal event on east side

Something weird is going on at my house.
I bought this wonderful home about 20 years ago but no one told me that it may very well be haunted.
Now, Anne Chapman lives across the street, and I’ve heard stories about her home and ghost hunters touring that place. I’ve honestly never seen anything from that home that wigged me out, but you never know.
Years ago Lee had woken me up one night asking if I saw the entity sitting in the corner of our room. At that point I got up, turned on the light, and went over to the corner and started wafting my arms through the air. “Nothing to see here.”
Or sometimes she would just wake up and look at me and start talking nonsense. Not like demonic nonsense, just conversational nonsense.
“Are you gonna make meatloaf tomorrow.”
“Huh?”
“You like my meatloaf so maybe we could get some ice cream?”
“Whaaaaaat?
“Ice cream - you said you wanted some ice cream.”
“Go back to sleep.” Then I start laughing.
“Ok,” she says - and doesn’t remember a damn thing in the morning. I’m not sure that was the exact wording, but it was very similar in drama, just as random, and very cute.
One night we both were awoken to the ceiling light in the far part of the bedroom just flickering. She asked what was going on and I said I don’t know. I checked the light switch and they both were off. I think I need the wiring redone. I think she would have preferred burning sage, and Sam and Dean Winchester sleeping on the floor next to us. She woulda let Dean in bed, I’m absolutely sure of it. Whether I had room or not would have been of no consequence. If you know, you know, but search Supernatural.
“Carry on, wayward boys.”
Anyway, I have things crash in the house without explanation. I was on the phone with Tim Gobble one afternoon talking business and the entire litany of bath products fell off the shelf in the shower.
So, yeah. But I’ve never, ever been frightened by spirits in my house. Oh, just the other night at like 1 a.m. when I got to bed, I was watching West Wing (there you go Jerry Hamelton – its a political foundation. You should watch it. We all could use some Josiah Bartlet in our lives.). Anyway, something or ‘someone’ touched my hip.  Now, I thought I was just falling a sleep and imagined it, but I did a reboot on my show and yep, I remember watching everything. Something tapped me - just once.
But whatever. This is still my favorite place on the planet and, if something is hanging around, I'm figuring they're harmless.
Until Sunday… dun, dun, duhhhhh!
I don’t like to have sweets around, I mean I DO, but I don’t need them, so I don’t want them on the counter or in the pantry. Because I will eat them. But Sunday I got done with work a little earlier than usual and I had a hankering to bake something. So I went out and got a white cake mix out of the cabinet that my daughter had put in there I’m sure. I don’t have cake mix, I want pie.
But I looked through the directions, preheated the oven to 350 as directed and started mixing the ingredients in a bowl by hand. I used egg whites, again per the instructions, but could have used the whole egg. At $6.50 a dozen, I should’ve used the whole damn thing. As I was mixing, my mind started getting creative, and I remember someone special to my heart telling me that cayenne was a nice addition to some desserts in extreme moderation.
Screw it, I put a couple dashes in the mix, then I wanted some mint chocolate in there so I added some Trader Joe’s hot cocoa mix to the batter. Then I went full on crazy and grabbed the toll house chocolate chips from the cupboard and added about a cup and half.
This is where things go – off the rail. You might wanna shield the kids at this point.
I stirred everything up and poured it into a 13 x 9 cake pan I had hit with non-stick spray. I popped it into the oven for about 30 minutes per the instructions and went back into the living room.
Alexa set a timer and when I went back in and stuck a toothpick in it came out just a little cakey, so I put the cake back in for five more minutes. This time the toothpick came out clean. I set it on a cooling rack and went back to the living room. I let it cool for about two hours and then frosted it with chocolate frosting. I cut 12 squares and carefully went to lift it out. The egg whites didn’t provide the dense cake I was anticipating. It was a little crumbly, but acceptable.
Then it happened.
Chocolate chips fell from the crumbly cake, in the form they went in.
“What?!”
I dropped the slender metal spatula and stepped away from the cake. I was expecting some chocolate clumps from melted morsels to delicately smear my fork. But no - I have hard chocolate chips.
Now, I’ve eaten the whole cake, but…my next call with Taylor in New York was full of animus over this development.
“What the hell?! How, if you hold a chocolate chip in your palm for 10 seconds, it starts to slide around as the chocolate melts, but in a 350 degree oven for 35 minutes in hot cake batter, it gets stubborn. I wanted some clumps of melted chocolate in with the mint and cayenne hint. Now I have to chew up chocolate morsels with what was supposed to be a silky cake.
How is that even possible? Taylor offered up a solution involving the gluten network. And she did it trying to hide a giggle because I think, that she thinks, its funny when I get mad at food. Which in her defense happens more than one might think.
Don’t ask me about the hot ham and cheese I tried to make the other day. I like to put pickles in the sandwich while heating so they get hot and part of the melty cheese.
But what the hell is a 'gluten network'. I guess it’s the web-like formations in your bread that are made of isotopes, disulphate bonds, and bugs and crap. But her hypothesis is that "the chips became nestled in the pods of the glucose network and were thus protected from the oven’s heat". Think about that. It's hot enough to turn liquid to a solid, or what is scientifically defined as ‘baking’, but not hot enough to melt chocolate chips.
Again, I ate the cake. Let us not be confused. I mean it was good, but what paranormal event would cause that entirely undefinable retrograde phenomenon to happen in my kitchen? It makes no sense. And I’m just a little frightened about that.
I think I’m gonna have to try it again – But that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.