My Couch is Haunted

In the center of our living room sits our couch.  It's pretty new (I hated the old one and begged Jim for years for a new one), but I am now convinced that it's haunted.  Check it out:

Our Couch (let's capitalize it, out of respect--I don't think I can afford to make it mad) is flanked by two lamps, one of which died a couple of weeks ago.  We had replaced the bulb, but it died again several days later, which we attributed to faulty wiring.  As there's another lamp by the couch, we haven't made replacing them a priority (plus, we're lazy like that).  So for weeks the lamp as sat, a shell of its former self. 

Until last night.  In the middle of the night, I was awoken by cat growls.  I noticed that there was a light on in the living room.  Hmmmm.  That wasn't on when we went to bed.  Maybe Jim wasn't feeling well, and got up?  No, he's still laying right next to me.  Well, unless one of the animals developed opposable thumbs since I went to bed...Freaky!  So, instead of getting up to find out why the lamp is up (heck, no!), I naturally wake up Jim and make him do it.  It's not that I'm more willing to put Jim in danger than I am myself, but instead, I am convinced that husbands possess some natural extra protection against the scary things in life.  Or at least, this is what I tell myself at three in the morning when a lamp is mysteriously shining in the living room and it totally wasn't on when I went to bed. 

So Jim gets up, breaks up the incident brewing with the cats (because, really, I suppose that is the priority), and discovers that the lamp that is shining is the lamp that has been dead for two weeks.  We must have left it in the "on" position the last time we tried to turn it on, but that still doesn't explain why, after two weeks, it decides to turn on again in the middle of the night. 

Jim and I got up again a few hours later, and the lamp was still working.  Cool beans.  But get this--Mr. Squiggles has a morning routine where he comes and sits on my lap the minute I sit down on the Couch in the morning (my morning routine), which he started to do this morning but then stopped.  Instead of jumping up on the Couch, he laid down on the ground and stared under the Couch.  I said, "Jim, the cat is staring under the Couch.  What is going on?"  He was less concerned than I and unwilling to stop making coffee to come look under the Couch.  And me?  I sure as heck wasn't going to look under there.

And the lamp?  For the sake of research, I just turned it on again.  And it's dead.