Ghostbusters

Two nights ago my laptop turned itself on, full volume, at 3 a.m. Strange, no? Considering I keep it set on mute, and the only other computer user in our household was in bed beside me sound asleep.

I looked at the digital clock on my nightstand, hoping to discover there’d been a power outage, but there had not. Which left only one rational explanation: a malign spirit was using my computer to send messages from the other side of the veil.

“Did you hear that?” I called into my husband’s sleeping face.

This month, countless families will export their most valuable home-grown resources to colleges near and far. Chances are, not all parents (over)react to that milestone the way I did the first time around, but trust me, even if Junior is just moving to a dorm downtown, it’s a heavy day. A heavy day that I remember in HD detail …The usual third click of the camera’s shutter was conspicuously absent as my two youngest children posed for their annual — and mandatory — first-day-of-school photos, waving by the front door.