She did everything one would do after moving into a haunted Victorian house. Elizabeth Dress smudged all the rooms, sprinkled the window sills and door frames with holy water, and had the local priest bless the home.

About a month later, a light knocking came on the front door in the afternoon. When Elizabeth answered it, no one was there.

That night, she awakened to a ferocious banging at her back door. In anger, she opened the door.

“What the hell do you want?” she growled to no one there.

For two days, this went on. Finally, having had enough of the knocking and banging, Elizabeth spread a handful of salt across the back patio and the front porch.

The noises went away but returned the next more as rapping at her kitchen window. She rushed outside to see if she might catch the culprit, but again, no one was there.

The rapping continued for the next three days. Elizabeth finally decided to take action by salting the outside ledges of her windows.

“That ought to fix their ass,” she said.

She slept peacefully through the night. Not even the overnight rain disturbed her.

Being early, she began her morning by making toast by cutting off two slices from the loaf she’d purchased the day before and placing them over the burner to brown them before adding butter and jelly. Then she started brewing coffee.

Next, she slid the dining room window open to allow in the fresh air. As she waited for the coffee to finish cooking, she watched as a thick, dirty disembodied hand appeared on the sill and slowly probed its way forward.

Quietly, she returned the few steps to the kitchen and retrieved the knife she used to cut the bread. Returning to the window, she slammed the frame on the hand and stabbed the tip through its top.

She watched as it appeared to struggle, fingers flexing wide before it vanished in a puff of dust. The knife remained embedded in the wood of the sill.

Elizabeth opened the window, leaned out, and shouted, “I’ll do more than just run a blade through your hand if you keep pestering me.”

It did no good. The noises returned with a vengeance, louder and more persistent than before. It became so bad that Elizabeth moved out, leaving Virginia City and going to Mexico to live.

Two years later, she met the man of her dreams. He was hard-working and treated her like a Queen.

Three months after their wedding day, Elizabeth noticed the deep scar on the back of his thick dirty hand.

My wife usually makes the coffee, though she doesn’t drink it. Therefore, I don’t have much to do with the process unless the pot runs dry or batching for a few days.

Then she shouted from the kitchen yesterday morning.

“Honey, do you know where the coffee filters are?” she asks.

“No,” I answer.

“Are you sure,” she said. “You were the last to make coffee.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m wearing them like a ruffled collar that Sir Walter Raleigh might have worn in the Elizabethan Era,” I answered.

A long pause followed.

“Found them,” she returned, sounding a little ruffled.

Several weeks ago, I wrote a small piece about the connection between the Mayor of Reno, Nev., and the monies received via smaller organizations connected to George Soros and the Chinese Communist Party, posting it to Facebook. Since then, I have had great difficulty because the hack attacks have been so furious that my computer will not work. It made no difference in the election outcome. The truth has its price, and though struggling to do my job as a news reporter, I’m content with it.

My Cousin Elmo says, “I’m the kind of person that goes to a party — and makes friends with the dog.”

My wife came home yesterday afternoon with a joke she heard at the middle school where she works.

“What gets dirty but stays clean?” she smiled.

For a moment, she had me stumped, then I answered, “A body in a coffin!”

The smile dropped from her lips, and a heavy furrow grew between her eyebrow.

“What?” I asked. “Was I right?”

“No — the answer is soap,” she said, adding, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

While visiting my favorite saloon in Virginia City last night, I saw a woman get her nipple pierced in front of me. On a related note, I’m no longer allowed to play darts when intoxicated.

Drunk, the old witch tricked me into getting into the cauldron full of water. It was only then I realize she had lit a fire beneath it and that I needed to escape.

But first I thought I’d have something to eat. She caught me after the third mouthful.

“Quit (smack, smack, smack) eating (smack, smack, smack) all (smack, smack, smack) the (smack, smack, smack) potatoes!” she screamed as she beat me with her broom.

I sobered up real quick after that.

It used to be easy-peasy to write an election coverage story for a newspaper. Not no more since election day has become election week.

Now reporters must search and research all the projected winners and losers and do it several times to avoid mistakes. All they get from the wire is projection here, projection there, or projection this and the projection that.

Stress brings on a return to childhood memories and a favorite, campy television show. Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na…

“Holy projections, Batman,” Robin said.

“I know, Robin. We never saw it coming,” Batman returns.

Meanwhile, in Gotham, the counting and projections continue.

Oddness surrounds me.

Tuesday, I smiled at a woman as I drove by her while she waited at the bus stop.

She picked up a stone from a nearby rock bed and hurled it at me and my truck but missed.

Thursday, she waved while offering me a big grin.

Last Friday, I was delivering newspapers and picking up the money from places where our publication is for sale. Because of this, I get all sorts of coins.

In this case, I thought I had a Canadian penny, so I put it in my shirt pocket. My wife separates them when she counts the pennies because US banks do not accept them.

I collect them, other foreign coins, Sacagaweas, and wheat pennies.

Once home, I found it to be a Lincoln head penny I’d never seen before. A 2009 copperhead embossment with Lincoln’s childhood cabin on the reverse.

As I said, I’d never seen one, despite collecting pennies and searching each for wheat sheaves. I do this because not long ago, I found a 1919-S.

I even told my wife that I had never seen one before. She told me that she hadn’t either, even though she had 30 years of counting pennies as a sandwich shop manager.

Then yesterday, we received an ad for a complete set of four 2009 Lincoln head pennies, the only year issued. Thirteen years and suddenly twice in a week.

All I can think is that reality bubbles must have collided about 11:30 a.m., November 4th, changing mine.