Herbert the Stinky Ghost?

Ghosts like me. They attach themselves to me. I'm not sure why - I bathe regularly so I don't smell like rotting flesh, but the perpetual lack of sleep does make me look like the undead.

When I was in college, my roommate and I had a corner room in the back of the dorm. Our lone window looked out on the back yard, our door opened into the hallway. If you turned right, you could go through the security door to the back foyer. There were steps leading to the upstairs where the boys lived or a door leading outside to the parking lot. If you turned left out of our room, you went through a long hallway, to the bathroom (communal)and the main part of the building.

Now the women who lived across the hall were an odd combination. Deb was ok. She was smart, hard-working, cute; but her roommate - she was just downright strange. Maybe she put a hex on us. Then there was the girl down the hall - Janet. She was a giant dork! My roommate loathed her. She would leave dead roses in front of Janet's door or flush the toilet when she was in the shower. Maybe Janet conjoured up a ghost to torment us. Who knows, but Herbert came to live with us one afternoon in the early part of 1985.

It was just starting to act like spring. The days were brighter, the snow was nearly gone, but there was still a chill in the air. I was a senior, my roommate Kel was a sophomore. Kel was a big girl - not fat - big and she scared me somewhat.

One afternoon, we both ended up in our room trying to do homework. I was trying to research a paper and Kel was reading. For once, we were both seated at our desks. Kel's faced the window and mine was at a right angle to hers a few feet away. The room was a bit stuffy. We had the door closed because of the noise of people coming and going. That's when the smell hit me.

At first, it was just a mild annoyance, like a tickle under my nose, like the first wisps of burning rubber or the first scent of dust burning on a light bulb. I rubbed my nose, but the smell grew stronger.

I glanced toward Kel but she was busy underlining her book. I sniffed in her direction, nothing. I turned back to my work and there was the smell. Next to my desk was a trash can and I glanced in there to see if maybe there was moldy food - but it was empty. Next to the trash can was a mini fridge - maybe we had spoiled milk in there so I opened it. Outside of two stale doughnuts and a can of juice, it was empty too.

Shrugging, I went back to my work. No sooner had I started when the smell returned- stronger this time. It was a sulphery smell. I glanced over at Kel, who was still apparently oblivous to the stench in our room. Well, as my daddy used to say, "A skunk never smells his own stink."

"Kel, did you fart?"

"What? NO!"

"Are you sure? Cuz it sure stinks in here."

"You're high." and with that she went back to reading.

The smell was getting too much for me. Maybe it was a dead mouse in the wall. I gathered up my books, preparing to go elsewhere, when I stood up, I noticed the smell went away. I sniffed myself - it wasn't me. I sat down, there was the smell again. I crawled under my desk.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for the source of this odor."

Kel got up and came over to my desk. "P.U., you're right it does stink over here. Sure ya didn't poop your pants?" Kel started opening the desk drawers but there wasn't anything in them that would cause this smell. If we moved away from the desk - we couldn't smell anything and finally, by moving around, we determined that the strange odor was contained in a 2 foot by 1 foot orb shape. At the moment, it had decided to hover above my chair. I left.

When I came back after class, the smell around my desk was gone. Kel was laying on the bottom bunk of our bed.

"the smell gone?"

"Yeah, I think so."

But it wasn't, over the next couple of months we learned that most of the time, the stinky orb lived in a corner near the ceiling. Ocassionally, it would drift down and "visit" us, usually when one of us had a guest. I know that it "stunk" Kel's boyfriend more than once. Just when they were getting "amorous" the smell would envelop both of them, killing the mood. We took to calling it Herbert. I mean what else do you do with a slightly annoying smelly orb besides name it and try to act friendly.

Once I went home for the weekend. When I returned I asked Kel if Herbert behaved and she said he had been missing all weekend. She hadn't been able to sniff him out. That's when we found out that Herbert couldn't go through walls or doors. See when I went home, I took a bunch of clothes out of my closet to take home and shut the door. Herbert, being the nosey orb that he was, had gotten locked in the closet and he was mad. When I opened the door, Herbert stunk me good. We had to open the window, the door and light candles to get him to calm down and get the smell to go away. But that wasn't the worst of it, Herbert was so mad that he slimed my stack of records I had on the top shelf. An amber color goo was all over the top record and the stuff was dripping down the sides. After that, we left all of the doors and drawers open just a little bit, just in case Herbert got locked inside.

A couple of months after Herbert made himself known, I moved out of the dorm. Kel stayed behind and ocassionally we'd run into each other. We never mentioned Herbert outside of our room so asking about him in public was taboo. So I don't know if Herbert stayed behind or left with me, but I never smelled the stench of Herbert again.