I grew up in a house that was built in 1701. In a house that old, you have to kind of expect some weird things to happen, but two things in particular stand out when I remember my childhood home. We had a dog, Muffin, who lived with us for many years in this house. Eventually, she became old and sick, and my parents had her put to sleep. Needless to say, I was sad, but I knew that it was for the best. Anyway, as I was lying in bed the night that Muffin died, I heard a rapid click-clicking noise on the hard-wood floor oustside my bedroom. I got up to check, and to my surprise, I saw Muffin run by, directly in front of me! I called out to her, but she showed no sign of hearing me, and continued down the hall, through the closed attic door, and up the stairs. I went up to look for her, but didn't see her. I never saw her again. My other strange attic encounter happened when I was about 12 years old. By that time, I was very used to all the strange goings-on in our house, and not at all threatened by them, since none of the forces which shared our home had ever shown the slightest interest in harming us. Anyway, my mother sent me to the attic to get something from the storage closet up there. As I crossed the front attic room, where all our old toys and baby stuff was kept, every toy in the room started up at the same time! The room was filled with noise and movement from a bunch of battery-operated toys that had been discarded over the years. If I hadn't been in such a hurry, this probably would have startled me, but as it was, I just stopped, looked around, and announced to the room at large, "I don't have time for this ghost crap right now!!" Everything stopped immediately, and I completed my errand. Later on, curious, I went back up to the scene of the disturbance and checked some of the toys that had acted seemingly on their own. I was not all that surprised to find that most of them had no batteries.