Last week, while leaving my office for the last time before a brief vacation, I was in the process of locking up when I heard what sounded like whistling. I had already walked through the building to be sure no one was left inside before I set the alarm, as I’m usually the last one to leave for the night, but the whistling prompted me to yell out, “Is anybody here?” As I got no response to that, I went ahead and set the alarm, locked the door, and left.

Or did I– lock up, that is? I was so distracted by the thought of possibly locking someone in the office to possibly deal with the ringing alarm, not that that person wouldn’t have the code and be able to turn it off, that, as I got on the MAX train headed for home, I began to doubt whether or not I had actually locked the front door. “Of course I locked it,” I told myself. “I do it every night, there’s no way I didn’t lock the door.” But I wondered– had I been distracted enough by the whistling that I would have forgotten to lock the door? And where did the whistling come from? I had been told before that there was a ghost flitting around the office, but had chosen to scoff at this. It probably wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I wasn’t going away the next day, if I were instead returning to the office to be sure that everything was okay. But I wasn’t, and knew that it would haunt me (no pun intended) the whole time I was supposed to be on vacation (yes, I’m that neurotic), and so my paranoia, and visions of a ransacked office, got the best of me.

After my roughly half-hour MAX ride and quick bike trip home, I hopped into my truck to go back downtown. I had to know if, A, I had locked someone in (maybe the whistler was in a bathroom?) or, B, if I had locked the door at all. So in the rain, in a huff, back downtown I went. Fifteen minutes later, less than an hour after I had left initially, I was back at the office…

…and all the lights were off, no alarms were ringing, the office was empty, and yes, the door was locked. And no one has yet complained to me that they were left alone to deal with clanging alarms. I am an idiot, but a ritualistic door locker. Ghost, 1, me, 0. Let me never doubt again. But at least I was able to enjoy my vacation.