Happy Halloween - Capitol Ghost Stories 2012

Mischievous Spirits

By Tammy Tengan

House Print Shop

House Print Shop - Hawaii State Capitol

I've had my share of little strange happenings in and around the spaces I've occupied in the Capitol.  I've been asked if it scares me, it doesn't.  I feel like they are protecting the area and if I'm in there, they are protecting me too.

My CD player

           

I had a CD player on my desk when I worked in the front office of the Chief Clerk's Office.  If I stayed at work later than usual, my CD player would stop playing.  I couldn't figure it out.

At first I thought it was the CD.  I changed the CD, but all the CDs wouldn’t play.  Funny thing, the next day they would all play fine – until about an hour after my shift ended. 

I had a cheapy CD player – so I figured it was the player – I got a new CD player – but the same thing would happen.   Then someone told me maybe it's the outlet; I unplugged it and plugged into another outlet – it would play fine during the day, but at the end of the day my player would stop playing.  Not turned off or anything – just stop playing.  It was like "enough already -- you're making too much noise – go home."   So when my CD player would stop playing, I would say, "okay, I'm going home."  

Some speculated that it was just the electrical connection in my cubicle, but it also happened when I moved into the Journal office.  I gave up on playing music on my CD player, I tried my computer.  My Computer can play CDs.   I don't do that anymore – that night my computer froze – just stopped, so I went home.  It hasn't happened to me in the Printshop – but then again I don't listen to music in here – the machines are too loud.

Printshop Incidents

Josette and I were in the Printshop during an interim sometime ago – I was using all four big machines printing up documents.  Josette was in the corner.  All off a sudden – and it wasn't a power surge or anything – but all four machines jammed at the same time.  I was like "whoa, somebody's upset.  What's going on?"   I went to tend to the machines got them up and running.  I later found that about the same time as my machines were all jamming – there was a stabbing incident up on the Rotunda level.  I guess it was their way of having Josette and me stay in the Printshop.

Mischievous Sprits

In the Printshop, during a special session, I was printing up the bills and the regular staff was going to come in and collate.  I printed up a bunch of bills, placed them on the table to get ready for collating.  The first time I came back to the table, there were 3 or 4 bills on the floor.  I picked them up thinking I must have brushed the table and some fell off.  After that, I was being extra careful not to make the bills go flying, but again when I came back to the table with another batch of bills -- a few would be on the floor.   After the third time—I said out loud, "stop it, I'm busy and we have to get this finished" The next time I came back to the table – no bills were on the floor.