The Chronicles of Blake – Volume LXXXIX

Hello Once agin all of y’all Newsletterinarians!

You know, I have been trying to come up with a totally new theme for a Newsletter in the future. I have had many successful themes in the past such as No Backspaces, Early Edition, Our Town, the famous Lord of the Rings edition, etc. I have some in mind, being my last year, but if you have anything in mind, by all means tell me! In fact, a lot of the themes I have done in the past were reader suggested! And you will get credit. :)

So this one might be a bit scary and suspenseful. If there are any children reading this under the age of 9 months, you may want to get a parent near to stifle the scariness and comfort you. But just so you are prepared, be ready to scream at the end and say AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! So, without Much Ado About Nothing, I present:


The Stainless Steel Lamp
By Blake Meyer

It was a bright and sunny morning (bet you weren’t expecting that!) Wait… no. It was a dark and stormy AFTERNOON [insert scary badly-played organ music]!!! I was sitting in my room doing homework when there was a bolt of lightning, the lights went off. Then another flash and I saw that SAME mouse that we have seen before run across the room again!... and again! So quickly I scrambled away in fear of the psycho mouse. So we bought a humane mouse trap that consisted of a door that hangs down from hinges on the top and only opens in, and not out. We baited the trap with peanut butter and waited… for many days. Nothing happened. We saw very little of Woody the mouse from that point on. EXCEPT…

Visions of the evil mouse invaded my dreams. I had a dream that this mouse was in my room, and everywhere I turned he was there… behind my computer, on the bookshelves, on my desk, in my bed, in the medicine cabinet, on the door handle, in my guitar, etc. I would wake up sweating, thinking I heard the little “scratch scratch” of Woody (the mouse, not my roommate). But it would end up being something else, so I fell back asleep. And the dreams never stopped…

But that is not the end of the strange paranormal circumstances of the past 2 weeks! [more scary radio-organ music]

In my youth block class the teachers really spoil us. It really is backwards from what usually happens. Usually the students bribe the teachers! But on one of the days Pastor Tom Craig, the teacher, took me and another guy out to a place called Cateran’s right off campus. Now the scary part…. The outside was worn down and it looked very dilapidated. The blinds were shut. We walked in to see a… SKELETON! No, just kidding. But it was the most Southern restaurant I have ever been to. It was a buffet style place and the main menu items were (you guessed it) Fried Chicken, Fried Catfish, Fried Okra, mashed potatoes, etc. and the drinks were water, coffee or [scary music] SWEET TEA! All the staff was an average age of 55, and the waitress called us “Honey!” It was actually a very very good southern home-cooking Mom & Pop place. I’d go there agin.’ The other scary part was that Tom Craig knows Pastor Wood (my former pastor back home) pretty well all the way back to school. This is what he said of him, “Yeah, Dave was pretty much the big guy on campus. I’d just walk around and tie his shoes sometimes.” I thought, “It’s a Small World!” and if you know anything about that ride, it is DEFINITELY scary. Thus, fitting my theme.

And I’m pretty sure I saw Woody the mouse run across the parking lot at Cateran’s. Scary.

On Wednesday the 5th in the evening Alpha had an officer’s meeting. We sat there in a haunted house… OK, I was trying to make it scary. We were in Alumni 101, which is just as scary. Anyhow, the subject of the night was the DATING OUTING! We were given 3 optional dates for it, and the one we were forced to choose was OCTOBER 6th! Just 1 month away! Most dating outings take months of planning, so we were pretty scared. So we started delegating right away and settled on a theme: “The Gathering.” It is a Celtic Theme. So we have all kinds of stuff going on. Well, I had the responsibility, among other things, to make the T-Shirt. The last one I did took a few months, so I wasn’t sure… But I was able to get together with Leighton Taylor, an Alpha guy who knows his Adobe illustrator, and we put together a TOTALLY SWEET design in a few hours, and I found a place that could print them (through much negotiating and talking to many different companies at the Society Officers Seminar). So I am sending in the order tomorrow, and everything is looking great! Everything is just falling into place for this outing, and if you ask any of the officers, we just have to acknowledge that it is all God’s working, because there really is no reason why things are falling into place so well. I am so excited about this, though. It is no doubt going to be the best dating Alpha has ever put on! And… I even have a pretty lass to take along! That is the best part! (she asked me not to wear a kilt though)

(the parenthesis part in the last sentence was the insertion of scariness)

Now.. for the epitome of scariness! No, not yet… this is a suspense. I’ll save it for last. Erika and I were privileged with seeing the Shakespeare play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Perf Hall. Let me tell you, I have not seen a funnier (or creepier) play at BJ. It kept me rolling in the aisles the whole time! Scary thing was, much of it is just like the way things are in my life… or at least the way I see them… or just a weird way my brain works. Anyhow, that was the first time I had seen it performed, even though it is my favorite Shakespeare play… and I was slightly disturbed, but amused! Now the scary part… in the middle of the performance a COCKROACH crawled across the floor not far away from Erika and me… and a guy squished it with his foot! [scary music on accordion… I mean, organ] Erika was more at peace after that. So it was much fun, and I had a great date! I mean… it was a very dark, dark, dark night. (gotta keep the scary mood going)

Then things got really weird and unnatural. (as if any of my life is natural) On night I was in my room when the dorm supervisor walked in. I was standing on a chair getting a Sunkist can from my cupboard when my chair just suddenly slipped out from underneath me and I landed on top of it rather hard… right in the presence of Mr. Dunn and many other congregants. And… it dented my can! But WHO or WHAT pushed that chair from under me? Was it Woody the mouse… or perhaps a… No, I wouldn’t believe it.

I am working late at night on Fridays now at the Collegian… that is scary. And I’m sure Woody is in that very eclectic office somewhere just watching me. (seeing a suspenseful theme here?)

Then in my Prophetic Books class I, for the first time in my college career… as a senior… FAILED writing the creed. I cannot believe it. I have said it word-perfect (and meant it) virtually every day since I got here in 2004. Three years later I failed writing it! I just wrote it down, thought it looked good, then when we started grading it, I realized I had left out the ENTIRE last phrase! Oops! Now that is scary.

Things get weirder YET! At Friday society lunch there were a bunch of us sitting there across from a girls’ society table, when suddenly they started bursting out laughing. We all looked over there JUST AS lemonade came spurting out of one girl’s nose!!! It was wonderful! And she turned beet red and laughed some more as we laughed at (I mean “with”) her. But I would have it come back at me. Erika and I were up running on the track that night when I thought it might be fun to see what it was like to drink out of a water fountain upside down. Well… all I got was a nose full of water. Erika seemed to like that a lot! That was an eerie event!

Oh, and speaking of… Erika and I are pushing each other on the track to go farther. (for any hall leaders or administration, don’t take that literally) The other night she ran 2.5 miles and I ran just over 5 (mostly after she left). Let me tell you, it is great motivation. Uh, and sometimes… it is dark and stormy as we run. [scary music again]

And one night… late at night… Woody (the roommate) heard something move on my dresser! It was a sound of something sliding and clinking on the countertop. Could it be?....... No. Of course not. Ghosts don’t like our room. Plus, how are we going to trap a ghost? Really…. Ghosts don’t like peanut butter bait. So we assume it was Woody the mouse… even SCARIER!!! We’re still not sure to this day…

One more incident before the pictures and the grand finale to my story…. On Monday of this week… I publicly prayed in chapel. After the opening hymn, it was my day to go up to the pulpit and open the chapel in prayer. I don’t think I should have been nervous, as I was just talking to God… but I was talking to God out loud in front of 7,000 people. That’s what I was nervous about. It was an interesting experience to say the least… and I didn’t collapse. I do remember thinking as I started talking and paused a moment, “This sounds kinda cool hearing my voice echo like that.” As long as God was pleased and heard the prayer, that is what is important. This incident wasn’t scary for you, but it was a bit for me.

SCAAAAAARY PICTURES!!!!!!!!



1) This is a picture of JC and Adam and the hats they made to make people smile and that they wore to youth block class. It might have been funny to some, but I thought it was scary, so I included the picture. :)



2) Ummm… read the concluding the story below for this one.



3) This was the scariest picture I could find of Erika and me. Uh… yeah.

SO THE WEEK WAS ALMOST OVER when I sat thinking about the strange unexplainable occurrences, typing away at my computer as wind and rain and thunder howled outside. Lightning, again, littered the time away every few seconds. Then, a bolt of lightning, and that mouse appeared again on the floor by the air conditioner. I ran across the hall and told the first guys I saw, “He’s back!” They stared in disbelief then came over to my room. To this point, I’m the only one who had seen a good glimpse of him. But there was no longer any sign of Woody the mouse. They walked away saying, “Blake you’re just imagining things.” But I KNOW something was there. Was it just some unnatural form I saw? But then after they left, I heard a very definite scratching noise behind me…. “scratch….SCRATCH” I thought, “OK, someone, or someTHING is making that noise! I slooooooooowly turned around to see a very PALE FIGURE! Oh, it was just Woody’s (the roommate) clothes hanging up for the next day. I walked over to his desk (where we had found evidence earlier) and heard very definite noises. I called Steve over from the room again. We took out the bottom drawer, and sure enough, we saw the mouse huddled in the corner! But before we could do anything, he jumped up towards us and disappeared! So we grabbed the trap, I put part of my PB&J sandwich in it, and set it back behind the desk and Steve left. Five minutes later I heard, “scratch…. SCRATCH… clink… clink… tap, tap, tap, tap” Then, a “rap, rap, rapping” so I shooed The Raven away from my windowsill and checked the trap. And sure enough there he was… the GHOST MOUSE! [scary music]

[this is where you scream]

THE END

Prologue: Woody ended up not being a ghost, and was actually quite cute, but he was a menace to society and we sent Tim the Freshman to release him. Unfortunately, he was released right outside the dorm, and will probably find his way back in here. But you may see a picture of him in the ones I included.

OK, so it wasn’t that scary. I tried. Write you later!

-McBlake the Brave
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I Thess 5:16-18 "Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks..."