By Georgia Osten
We recently went on our “date night” to Galveston. It’s a normal thing we do about once a month. Something just to get away from our everyday life at the beach. We go over to the Island and act just like tourists. Ironic, since I get so fed up with tourists. Not quite as obnoxious, I hope. I mean, after all, we don’t dig holes in the sand and forget to cover them back, we don’t go out on the beach and do donuts or drive over the dunes, we don’t speed up and down the streets, and we are always kind to our bartenders and will chat with ANYBODY!

We generally do the same routine every time we go to our favorite hotel downtown. We check in, go up to our room and remark how “I think we’ve been in this particular room before.” Since the hotel re-decorated, when we enter our room, we also say, “there’s only one chair.” But we make do. Lately, the last few times we’ve been, they’ve put us in a scenic room overlooking the street.

After we’ve had a glass of wine in our room and enjoyed the “Bonvoy channel” in the room that personally “Welcomes” us, we head down to the bar for our favorite cocktails “The House Old Fashioned.”

Mind you, we’ve been doing this for at least 10 years now. On each floor, where the elevators are located, there are antique credenzas on each side of the landing. Many years ago, we began snooping through the drawers in the credenzas. We still do. Quite some time ago, we found a pair of frilly lady’s undergarments in one of the drawers. Don’t be silly, we left it! But we still check, you never know.

This trip, of course we checked, but sitting by the antique room service phone was a little plastic duck, no bigger than a pea. I, of course picked it up and admired it, so cute! I really wanted to keep it, but I put it back for the next person to admire. Good feeling, what was I going to do with a silly little duck anyway?

We went on down to the bar and ordered our drinks. Of course, we met another couple who were going out on a cruise ship the next day to celebrate their parent’s 60th wedding anniversary. Well, lo and behold, this fellow asked what we were drinking and told the bartender to put it on his tab. Geez, how sweet! I guess he was feeling very generous.

Next, we went back up to the room to get ready to walk over to Hearsay’s for dinner. At the landing on the second floor, of course, we looked for the little duck where I placed it by the antique phone. It wasn’t there, some greedy person had probably picked it up, thinking it was so cute.

My husband put the card reader up to the door of our room and something fell off the fancy door opener. IT WAS THE DUCK! Are you kidding me? How did it know where our room was? This gave me goose bumps! Geez, was it a ghost? Or, are there cameras, were we being watched?

We put the little duck back by the antique phone on our way out to dinner.

When we returned from dinner, the duck was gone, probably visiting someone else.

I guess stranger things have happened, but this was our first experience with the haunts of Galveston.

I’ll do it again, I ain’t scared!

[GO: Aug-8-2023]