Ultra heavy antique wringer jumps off shelf

This is one for the armchair sleuth. Yesterday at our store in Byesville, Ohio a seemingly impossible occurrence occurred. My wife's store is primarily a store for women who want to change their homes with new curtains, vintage furniture or Victorian bric a brac. In the store's main showroom runs a shelf, about five foot from the ceiling, around the room. What the original purpose of this shelf is unknown but we use it to display vintage items that just wouldn't look right out on the floor. Amoung these items such as old sleds, lamps, toys, was a very heavy old washday wringer. Originally this wringer sat on top of an old rustic wooden tub. The wringer was made of cast iron and wood. It had a large cast iron crank on it so the lady of the house could use it to wring the water out of washday clothing, etc. The wringer was placed on the shelf roughly two years ago by two people handling it. It sat solidly on the overhead shelf and was leaning against the wall of the store. Here's where it gets interesting. My wife was at the cash register going over some orders. I was in the work area just off the side of the rear sales area. Suddenly I hear a thunderous crash and my wife's exclamition. I honestly thought the store had been struck by a vehicle. I ran from the work area to the main sales floor. My wife was moving out of the cash register area toward the middle of the sales floor. "It jumped up into the air and fell off the shelf" she was saying. I could see the wringer was half on the floor shelf and half on the floor. "What do you mean, It jumped off the wall?" I asked. Going over to the wringer, we could see the handle of the thing had managed snag two packaged curtains when it hit the lower sales shelf. Keep in mind, this wringer is heavy, I haven't weighed it, but it must weight 40 or 50 pounds. It sat flat on the top shelf and was leaned against a wall. If the wringer had simply slid down the back wall, it would have still been on the shelf. The wringer was leaning BACK against the wall but had managed to fall face forward. A small piece of wood was chipped off the wringer housing, but otherwise it was fine. My wife said she saw it "jump" before it fell. If something had jostled it that severely I would have thought that much lighter in weight items would also have fallen or at the least moved. Nothing was out of place but the wringer. This is a strange one that common sense cannot explain. Anyone out there with a good explanation is welcome to comment.

Computer chair goes bonkers

Last night, around 10:30, my wife was using the computer. The chair for the computer is a swivel type, average backed chair with padded arms that are firmly fastened but do have some flexible movement either vertical or horizontally. I had just stepped out of the den on my way to the kitchen when my wife, directly in front of me, in the computer chair, which is in the library, exclaimed, "What the heck?" The right arm of the chair was moving in an up and down motion. Though my wife was sitting in the chair, she was not making contact with the right arm of the chair. After moving up and down on its own for three times it settled into being a plain arm on a chair again. Not a big deal but still a bit of a wonder. I've tried sitting in that chair and moving and wiggling all about, but I have had no luck making that arm on the chair move on its own. I have to physically move the arm up and down. So how did it manage to do it on its own, with witnesses no less. Interesting, don't you think?

Out of thin air

Thus things at the store get weird. The temperature today reached a balmy 7 degrees. My wife opened her store on time anyway. I had just gotten the opening duties completed and was removing the last Christmas tree for backroom storage when our first customer appeared. I didn't meet the customer as I was quite busy trying to find a spot in our overcrowded backroom to store a boxed 7 foot artificial Christmas tree. By the time I reentered the main store the customer had left and my wife franticly searching for towels with a crow design on them. She had three on the floor but the customer wanted 4. I had seen these towels before and was certain they were in the work area shelving unit. I stopped what I was doing and fairly pulled that area apart and did not find the towels. My wife had searched deligently the entire main salesroom with no luck. With the temperatures so low we were not interrupted with customers. Finally giving up we continued with other chores. Calling my attention to a large empty basket that had had lighted pictures displayed in it, my wife asked me to take it back into the storeroom as there was no longer any need for it on the floor. Frankly, at the timer, I was involved with bringing fresh merchandise out onto the floor and I forgot about it. Four thirty rolled around and it was time to start closing procedures. My wife caught sight of the basket that I was supposed to have taken back into storage. Calling my attention to the fact she went for the basket and discovered it was no longer empty. It had three of the long sought after towels in it. I had seen that basket as empty even before I was asked to remove it to the back. My wife has emptied the basket of one or two lighted pictures and nothing was replaced in the basket. When my wife and I had searched to store for the crow towels we would have passed that basket numerous times. Suddenly the missing towels are in this particular basket. How? When? by Who? If they had been in the basket earlier we would have seen them. The sudden appearance of these towels certainly startled my wife. We only had 6 or 8 customers the whole day and only one of them was interested in this particular towel. I'm glad they showed up. The customer will be notified. But once again I'm scratching my head wondering "What the heck is going on."

Strange goings on continued

So the very next night (Friday) I again turned in early, but not as early as the prior night, about 10:30pm. I usually like to read for a bit before lights out but again, like last night, I was too tired and went to sleep pretty early. Again the dogs were downstairs with my wife. I had already taken them out so all she had to do was let them upstairs. Suddenly I was awakened by frantic digging. It was loud and it was close. Thinking my wife had allowed the dogs upstairs I reached over to settle the offending digger down. There was no one there, my hand reached empty space. What's more the digging sound continued until I turned on the light. The clock said 11:37pm. I had only been in bed about an hour. At this point upon examination the covers did not appear to have been dug, actually nothing appeared to have been dug. This episode had me pretty much awake. Shortly after the inspection and a short trip to the jon I was about to turn in again when I heard the stampede of Schnauzers come up the stairs. The schnauzers roared down the upstairs hall and both hit the bed about the same time. My wife climbing the stairs somewhat later informed me she couldn't hold them back. Probably true. So what the heck was digging covers so close to me I thought I could handle it? Silly man that I am. But Criminey, I wish I knew the answers to those and other riddles about this old house.

Strange goings-on

I've had some strangeness going on over the past few days but I haven't had time to address the issues properly. First of all we have been working the store on an almost continuing fashion. Both of us were exhausted. Thursday night we came in had supper and I informed my wife that I was headed upstairs to bed. My wife decided she would stay up a while and catch up on the computer. I left our two dogs downstairs with my wife. Since her leg problem she has been using the separate Noah's room anyway. I must have really been out of it because I was asleep as soon as I hit the bed. However, at about 10pm (three hours after turning in) I was awake for a bathroom run. Then shortly after mid-night I was gently awakened by the motion of the bed. I lay there for a few minutes trying to figure what I was doing to cause the bed to gently rock back and forth. As I was laying perfectly still and I was still being rocked. This made no sense to me but I finally got up to see what was rocking the bed. Once off the bed the rocking could no longer be felt. I turned back in and discovered the rocking motion continued. I was pretty sleepy and must have simply gone back asleep. At around 4:15am I was again awakened by voices, muted, garbled, but no question voices. OK, My wife must be going to bed and is talking to the dogs. Last thing I remember thinking was "boy is she up late". I didn't awaken again until a quarter after 9:00am.So I had slept about 14 hours straight. Obviously I needed the sleep. I got up, got dressed, went downstairs only to see the stairway gate was in place and my older gray schnauzer looking up at me. Obviously my wife left the dogs downstairs. I replaced the gate and walked into the kitchen. My dogs wanted to be taken out; so I had the put on a coat, hat, heavy shoes, retrieve the leashes where I had stashed them the day before and take the mutts out. By the time I came back in, my wife was in the kitchen fixing breakfast. I chided her for being up so late and was quickly set straight. She turned about 11:30pm but as her leg was really bothering her , she had not taken the dogs out but left them blocked off in the downstairs. No wonder they wanted out so bad when I came down. I told her about the shaking bed and she reminded me that that use to happen infrequently in the past and apparently, with her, that explaination took care of it. True, there were times in the past when we were awakened by a rocking motion on the bed. As to the subunderstandable dialog I heard? Now that she had no explaination for. Then the very next night...