From Beyond... and Below

I have drinks tonight at home when I get there.  I will be reachable on cell though I won't be answering it and you won't be calling it.  Your hopes of speaking to me about the potential tastiness of my drinks will be dashed when my voicemail greeting rambles on and on about the unnecessary savory qualities of certain southern Italian hard cheeses.  You'll leave a message and feel deflated and dejected.  The only thing that will save your evening will be the superiority you'll feel in watching paid spokespeople selling diabetic supplies to people in electric scooters.  For a moment you'll wonder if you've somehow missed the season premiere of "Vampire Diaries".  In your haste to know, you'll drop the remote and one of the AA batteries will roll under the couch.  You'll contemplate reaching under there, but you'll recall that black widow spiders are prevalent in these parts.  Arming yourself with a child's plastic light saber and a catcher's mitt, you'll discover how easily the battery is retrieved when the couch slides without effort.  You'll jokingly suggest that it was the result of a poltergeist.  Laughing heartily, you'll settle back in to your television viewing.  Not long after a stuffed clown will try to strangle you.  Once the stuffing has been removed from the offending possessed plaything, you will find yourself frantically scanning the pages of your phone book for "Ghosts", "Ghostbusters", then "Mediums" and finally "Little People".  You'll make the call, shakily, and be connected with the spirit of Billy Barty who explains to you that he can't speak with you right now as he's trying to reinsert the stuffing in a clown doll he's just possessed in an effort to kill the very person who denied him the standing in life as the national treasure that he so righteously deserved.  You'll put two and two together; burn the doll; set some Sicilian Regiano out as a conciliatory gesture and break out the Ouija board from the hall closet.  You and Billy Barty will have a wonderful time laughing and even crying together.  Finally, it will get very late and Billy will leave for his late night haunting of Cheetah's Gentlemen Club.  Moments later the TV will change channels on its own to the movie "Willow".  It's then that you'll realize that you were wrong to have ever doubted that Billy Barty could be anything but the precious gift that he was.  You'll fix a drink and toast Billy Barty.  You'll feel the urge to tell me the events of your evening and will call my cell phone.  The process will reset and begin again, only this time you'll find that Herve Villechaize has no intentions of leaving in peace.