I'm not crazy. This is my logical conclusion.

I'm going to give you the evidence, and then I'm going to offer my well thought out, logical conclusions, and you're going to tell me if I'm nuts or not. Mmk?

Last night I came home and I put my laptop on my desk and took Choo Choo out for walkies and then made dinner and ate and did all the normal things that I do after I get home from work. Right before bedtime I picked up an empty soda can off of Padawan's desk and went to throw it away in the trashcan that I keep on the lowest shelf on the right side of my desk where it stays out of the way and can't be tripped over or knocked down. But when I reached down, my trashcan was not there.

Strange.

I looked around, and found it sitting on the carpet on the right side of my desk. But I didn't put it there. I never move my trashcan. It's pretty much empty. How on earth did it get there?

My first logical thought was Padawan. So I asked him, "Padawan, did you move my trashcan?"

He looked at me like I was stupid. "Well, yeah! It was sitting in the middle of the floor when I came home this morning! I moved it out of my way."

Sitting in the middle of the floor? That wasn't right. As I said, I never moved it. 

"Well, did you move it to the middle of the floor for some reason?"

"What? No! Why would I do that? I found it in the middle of the floor and moved it over there."

I was confused, but then I remembered that we had left Choo Choo out that morning when we left for coffee before I went to work. "Oh, you mean Choo Choo dragged it out and spilled it in the middle of the floor?"

He shook his head. "No, I found it in the middle of the floor. Upright, just like this," and he moved the trashcan to where he found it. I still suspected Choo Choo, so I experimented and pulled the trash can out of the place I keep it, using angles that Choo Choo would have to use because she's a five pound dog that even on her hind legs can't reach a foot up in the air.

But no matter how many times I did it, no matter which angles I used, I could not move, push, or pull the trashcan out without knocking it over immediately in front of the desk. There was simply no way that my dog could have been smart enough to drag the trashcan all the way over to the middle of the floor and then stand it back up and put everything that would have fallen out back in. 

Physically impossible, assuming that my dog possessed the mental capacity to try it, which she doesn't. Not that I don't love my dog, but she's really just not that smart. And what would be the thought process behind doing it? "Haha, I'm going to fuck with Mommy's mind and move random objects around the room!"

(Great balls of fire, there are six children standing behind me making obnoxious fake crying noises and I'm about to turn around and tell them to STFU because they're irritating the hell out of me. This is why I don't want children. And the fact that their parents are blissfully ignoring them makes think they shouldn't have one kid, let alone six. And...yup, one of them just got smacked by another and is now curled up in a ball on the floor screaming at the top of his lungs. If I didn't think there was something morally wrong with taking pictures of other peoples' obnoxious children to insult and belittle them on the internet, I would take a picture and put it  here. As it is, though, I do think there is something morally wrong with photographing other peoples' children, even ones that are sitting TWO FEET FROM MY EAR SCREAMING, just to make fun of them.)

The next logical question was, "Well, did someone from the apartments come by and leave a note?" Because it's in our lease that if the management or maintenance or anyone associated with the apartment comes by they have to leave a note explaining why the came and what they did.

"No, nobody was here today."

Well, I honestly didn't think that was the reason the trashcan was moved anyway. What interest could my trashcan have to someone from the apartment complex? They would have been there for things like checking the fire alarms (which went off the other day for no reason and they only stopped when I hit them with a guitar) or fixing the stupid knob in the kitchen that was installed incorrectly. They wouldn't touch my personal belongings.

Maybe some random stranger just walked in? But no. I locked the door that morning. And I know I did because I tried to use my mailbox key at first and swore at the lock because it wouldn't fit and then I realized it was the wrong key and sheepishly switched and then turned the knob and pushed the door to make sure it was locked, which it was. So nobody without a key got in unless they could walk through walls. And this isn't X-Men.

Well, my next thought was that Padawan had just moved it that morning before we left and forgot about it, but then I remembered that he went down to warm up the car while I put my shoes on at my desk, and that I had walked right through the place the trashcan was located on my way out the door and I would have noticed it. So I knew it wasn't him.

And the only logical conclusion I could reach was this: my brand new, never been lived in, totally awesome apartment is haunted. Is that even possible? If nobody has lived there, and nobody has died there, how could it be haunted?

I didn't actually reach that conclusion until about three o'clock this morning when I woke up because a really bright light went off in my face, but there was nothing there. But then when I looked at the wall I swear to whatever Higher Power that may or may not exist that I saw something. And this could all be my overactive imagination. Maybe subconsciously I already thought of ghosts and so I woke myself up imagining things happening. I could have imagined the bright light, the creepy shadow thing, the feeling of being watched.

But then Choo Choo got out of bed right then and went over to the corner and put her paws on the wall where I was sure I was seeing the thing and kept sniffing. She wasn't growling. Just sniffing the wall like there was something interesting there that she couldn't quite figure out. And why did she suddenly go over there to investigate? Why when I was sure there was something watching me from over there? I've never seen her do anything like that before. And believe me, I'm pretty aware of my dog's habits and personality quirks. I've never seen her sniff a wall before this morning.

But this is how it works, right? I've used a logical process to eliminate options until I'm left with one viable, albeit silly, answer. Anybody have a better explanation?