When I got home from work tonight, I found the Sci-Fi Channel’s Ghost Hunters on the television.

No surprise. It’s one of The Wife’s favorite shows, and I like it as well — I think it’s one of the least-hokey ghost shows on TV. Their semi-scientific approach to their investigations is kind of reassuring — and at least much better than the English cast of that other show, whose members seem to wander around having hysterics.

When the Ghost Hunters folks experience something, they typically react pretty well — no running, screaming, crying, etc. I reacted in a similar fashion two evenings ago, when the following things happened to me within two minutes of each other:

1. I’m standing at the kitchen counter, pouring a beer. A plastic measuring cup, which I had taken out of the sink and placed on the stove top on an earlier trip to the kitchen, falls off the stove and on to the floor.

2. I return to the living room, and sit on the corner of our coffee table to remove my shoes. The ironing board, pictured here, falls into my lap.

OK. When the measuring cup fell, I thought it was possible that I might have been the cause; although I don’t remember bumping the stove, I could have done so, jostling the cup enough to cause it to drop.

The ironing board is tougher to explain. The picture shows how it’s stored on a day-to-day basis — closed, and leaning up against the bookshelves. If it were to fall, it can’t go far in either direction you’d think would be logical, towards the bookcase or in the other direction, which is blocked by a dresser and a bunch of other stuff.

That’s the odd part — it didn’t fall in either of those directions. I was facing the ironing board in roughly the same angle you see here, and the ironing board fell towards me. The plastic cap facing you on the upper foot in the picture ended up sitting on my knee.

It didn’t hurt. I wasn’t even all that startled, until I started thinking about how it had to fall to reach me, and the fact that it fell without any possibility of a human cause.

We’ve seen stuff in this apartment before. I’ve seen a cat darting around corners, when I know our actual cat is asleep in another room; I’ve always attributed that to a visit from Cash, the cat who adopted us in Athens years ago, and who died after suddenly taking ill about two months after The Wife and I got married.

Also, we’ve both smelled cigar smoke in the apartment, even though The Wife doesn’t smoke inside and the only other smokers in the building are upstairs, on the opposite side of the house. The Wife’s late grandfather smoked raunchy old stogies for years and years, and we’ve always figured that Pappy Dick had visited when that smell was present.

This, though, was something different. I called The Wife in from the porch without moving anything — I wanted her to see. I explained what happened in the kitchen — she said she heard the clatter of the cup hitting the floor — and then the nearly impossible angle that the ironing board had taken.

Like a good Ghost Hunters fan she said: “Hm. Someone’s trying to get your attention.”

Hey. If you were looking for my attention, you definitely have it.