Tetherd Cow Ahead

Whilst browsing the Rogues Gallery recently, I learned of a newly available product that I know is going to greatly interest all Cow readers: Roland-Deese Productions’ Ghost In A Bottle.

Yes, Cowpokes, for forking out a mere $US20.00 you too can have a bottle containing a ‘ghost’ ‘captured from a reported haunted establishment, (house, hotel, ship, cemetery, etc), by our Ghost Hunters’.

“But Reverend,” I hear you cry, “There are so many crooks, thieves and swindlers out in the wide world! How can I be sure that I’m getting a real ghost in my bottle?! What’s to stop Roland-Deese Productions from selling me some cheap empty bottle and merely saying there’s a ghost in it?”

Well, Cowmrades, you can be sure you’re getting the Real Deal because along with your bottle-imprisoned-ghost you get a ‘Ghost Certificate’ which is signed by the Ghost Hunter that has ‘captured’ the ghost! In addition, the bottle (‘Sealed for Your Protection*: WE CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY MISFORTUNE TO BEFALL YOU SHOULD YOU TAKE POSSESSION OF THIS OBJECT’) comes with a List of Dire Warnings of Hideous Things that Might Happen if you open your bottle, like, oh, ‘your car keys might go missing…’ or ‘you might smell an unfamiliar cologne or perfume…’. Roland-Deese Productions would surely not just make things like that up!

Indeed, as Murray, of Apple Valley, California says in the testimonials:

Just like your instructions advised, I beleive I have seen all signs of my ghost. I’m thinking of moving out of my apartment, it’s now haunted. The Ghost Bottle is a very entertaining novelty!

It would appear that Murray’s ghost isn’t so much haunting him out of his apartment, as entertaining him out! One can only speculate as to whose spirit he got.

Not only might something from the long list of Warnings happen to you, should you open your Ghost Bottle, but Roland-Deese further advises that ‘You may experience other Ghostly situations not stated above.’ I guess that would cover:

• Hideous face deformation and body contortions
• Having your soul sucked out through your mouth
• Attacks by swarms of flies
• The desire to throw yourself out a thirteenth floor window
• Getting sucked into the TV

…and all the other things that ghosts really† do that the purveyors of the Ghost Bottles are not keen to detail in their list, for some reason. Of course, Roland-Deese Productions Ghost Hunters are professionals and therefore in no danger themselves when they bottle their wraiths:

There is a special technology that takes place when our Ghost Hunting professionals capture the Ghosts.

That special technology is of course called Bullshit™ and is used extensively throughout the world of ‘psychic’ commerce.

All that being said, faithful Acowlytes, it will probably come as no surprise to you that agents‡ for TCA Enterprises, ever on the lookout for a new marketing opportunity, have come up with an even better idea than a Ghost in Bottle: a Ghost SHIP in a Bottle!

(Sorry folks. No matter how hard I try, I simply can’t present you with artwork as terrible as the Ghost in a Bottle site)

Yes, that’s right! Selected readers of Tetherd Cow Ahead are eligible†† for their very own highly collectible Fantom Frigate in a Flagon! Using genuine naval ectoplasm,‡‡ TCA artisans have lovingly crafted exact replicas of your favourite mystery ships, including the Andrea Doria, the Octavius, the Flying Dutchman and the Mary Celeste, had them cursed by Certified African Witchdoctors** and then stuck in a jar. Of course, that’s exactly where you should leave them, because, should you open your Fantom Frigate Flagon, you may experience:

• Flooded drains
• Shortages of rum in the liquor cabinet
• ‘Mysterious’ parrot droppings around the house
• Unexplained attacks of scurvy
• Voices singing sea-shanties in another room
• Huge splintered wooden holes in your walls
• ‘Salty’ tasting coffee
• Other things not stated above that might be associated with ghost ships, or the sea, or pirates, or water, or films about ghost ships, or salt beef, or smuggling, or gold doubloons, or films about water, or wooden legs, or Moby Dick, or the moon on a cloudy night. Etc.

And remember, when you get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and a water-logged, rag-draped skeleton leaps out of your bathtub and lunges at you with a rusty sabre – make sure you have a good ol’ chuckle. After all, it’s just entertainment…

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*The bottle is sealed with wax, for Pete’s sake. What kind of third-rate spook is going to let a little glob of red wax get in the way of eating your brains?

†They don’t really do those things. Ghosts don’t exist. In case you were, like, taking me seriously or anything.

‡I shamelessly stole this idea from Jim Shaver over at Rogues Gallery, Thanks Jim!

††Bribes Conditions apply.

‡‡Spiritualism joke.

**From Nigeria. It wasn’t at all difficult to find experts there in the ‘special technology’ that Roland-Deese uses.

★A special thanks to Ralph Elzholz at Virtual Room for the Schooner model.

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