Ghosts in the 'machine'.

This morning, in my parent's dining room, I was watching the happenings on twitter (an addictive personality? Me?), and Boy #1 was indulging in a spot of Nintendo-love. Every now and again he would mutter something obscure like 'pink road', 'blue road' or 'I've got protection' (What?).

Now, I have to say that I have been eating slightly richer food here than I would normally do. My mother is a fantastic cook, and not only would it be foolish in the extreme to turn down her culinary offerings, it's more than my life as a beloved daughter is worth. So (have you guessed where I'm going with this?) my stomach is a little more 'volatile' than it would normally be. A little 'noisier'. A little - oh, alright. I'm more explosive than usual.

I've been trying not to share this too much with my children, but what the hell, a fart's a fart at the end of the day and I'm not going to leave the room for one; it's not like they do that for me, after all...

So, there we were, Nintendo and laptop keys singing along in happy unison when suddenly there was an unidentified (to Boy #1, at any rate) noise. A sort of a squeal, if I could call it that. Now, I knew where it came from. But Boy #1 - safely on the other side of the room - didn't.

He looked at me in surprise. "What was that?" "What was what?" (I know - I'm a charlatan). "That - that noise?" "I don't know..."

"Oh. Right. Do you think maybe it was... a ghost?"

Dear Internet, forgive me. My answer? "Gosh. Well, of course there are no such things really, but yes, I suppose it could have been..."

Will I burn in hell, do you think?