My teacher knows ghosts?

Mira Friedlander
December 11, 2008
Filed under Humor

When I found out my old Western Civ teacher was a ghost writer, I seemed like the most enthusiastic kid to go interview her for an article. The whole time I thought about questions to ask her: Does she stay in haunted houses? Where does she find the ghosts? Can she see them? Can she communicate with the ghosts?  The whole day I pondered how Ms. Weisgram could possibly write about phantoms and ghoulish things. So I arrived in her room promptly at 2:33.53 for the interview, as planned. I waited patiently until she was ready to talk (I thought she could have been finishing a summary on her latest ghost interaction). Ms. Weisgram sat down and said,  “I have one disclosure, I can not say who I wrote for or when.” I agreed thinking that it wouldn’t matter, it was probably for some confidentiality on where you could find the best ghosts.

I proceed to ask her my first question, “What technically is a ghost writer?” Assuming she would respond quickly with an answer like, “Oh mostly ghosts, phantoms, goblins, and witches; I write about basic Halloween characters.” But no, that wasn’t the answer I received. She replied with “it is when you write anonymously without receiving any credit for it.” I stared at her with a blank face. Everything I thought about her was untrue; I had been fantasizing about things Ms. Weisgram did not actually do. She asked me if everything is alright, because I had been so confused I just sat there in silence for a bit.  I questioned her again, “so you don’t write about ghosts?”

The look I received was undeniably that one look you never want to get, with just one glance her facial reaction said, “Are you kidding me right now? You must be joking about that question.” Nope, I was completely serious. I went on to finish the interview, which didn’t take long because I wasn’t really prepared to talk about political writing. So I packed up my bag and went on my way to write this article about a ghost writer, which turned out not to be even close to my expectations. I left thinking about how I would overcome my next encounter with the ghouls under my bed, because Ms. Weisgram did not inform me about them at all.