Apport

I suppose if you live long enough, just about everything will happen to you eventually. This morning, I had an apport.

An apport, for those of you unfamiliar with the word, is a Spiritualist term which describes small objects that materialise out of thin air during a seance -- and sometimes spontaneously at other times. Although I've been a member of the Society for Psychical Research for many years now and have attended scores of seances, I've never seen an apport... until now.

It happened just after I stepped out of the shower and was in the middle of drying myself with a towel that had been hanging on a rack. The apport, a 2-cent piece, new looking minted in Ireland in 2002, dropped out of nowhere onto the floor.

I was alone at the time, obviously naked (and wet!) with nothing nearby that might provide any obvious explanation for the appearance of the coin.

Apports may or may not be connected with OOOPs (Objects Out Of Place) another phenomenon that's being taken very seriously by psychical researchers lately. An OOOPs occurs when you leave something down -- a ring, a brooch, whatever -- which has disappeared when you go back for it. OOOPs objects often turn up again, sometimes months later, long after you've searched the house from top to bottom and decided they've gone for good.