This one seems interesting. It’s a tag that’s been circulating video blogs, but since I don’t do those, I’ll write out my responses instead. Please also consider participating and, in the comments section, link me to your responses. Also, be sure to share with the blogosphere using the #IntuitiveTag.

I’ll be completing the intuitive tag in various parts. Here’s Part 1.

Share your first paranormal experience that comes to mind.

The first one that comes to mind happened about five years ago, no, maybe even more years ago than that. Know that I have a strange affinity with “11.” It recurs throughout my life and I, like a handful of others, always seem to glance over at the clock when it’s 11:11 exactly.

At the time of this occurrence, the address number of the condo that Hubby and I lived in was 109. The condo next door was 111. We had just moved into this condo, so I was not yet familiar with the neighborhood. In other words, hadn’t one clue where the nearest hospital was.

It was evening, a weeknight. Hubby was still at work and I had just gotten home to start preparing dinner. I had oil heating up in a wok and was chopping up the eggplant to be fired up in that wok. Meanwhile I was yapping away on the phone with my sister.

I lost track of the stove and FOOM! I turned around to see where the sound was coming from and oh my @#$%ing the wok was on fire. The flames were 3 feet high and melting the microwave that was situated above the stove.

“Gotta call you back,” I muttered to my sister on the other line. Then I dropped the phone and panicked.

In a state of panic, I couldn’t think straight. In that moment, it made more sense to me to try to run the flaming wok out of the house into the parking lot than it did to simply try to get it in the sink. I think it’s because I recalled watching something about putting water on a fire and the fire getting bigger, I don’t know, I’m just making excuses now. Anyway, in the moment, I grabbed the handle on the wok and dashed for the front door.

As I ran, the flames climbed out of the wok, onto the handle, and onto my right hand. I looked down as I scuttled and screeched, because I was watching the flames creep onto my hand. It didn’t hurt, though. There was a disconnect between what I saw and what I felt. It looked like it should hurt like a mother, but I couldn’t feel a thing. My hand was numb.

It wasn’t until after I was in the parking lot outside my condo and had dropped the flaming wok onto the ground that I screamed out and realized my hand was hurting like a mofo. Even though now there were no more flames on my hand, now it felt like my hand was burning up on fire. I dashed back inside to run my hand under ice cold water but it wasn’t enough. Then I realized I was leaving a flaming wok unattended outside in the parking lot, so I wrapped a towel around my hand and ran back outside.

A man, Caucasian, old, had to be like 60 or older, white hair, had on white shorts I remember, because they seemed to glow in the dark, ran out of the condo next to us, Suite 111.

“Are you okay, Miss?” he asked me.

I nodded, but my expression must have been an obvious expression of pain.

“Get to the hospital, now!” He ordered. “I’ll handle the fire.”

My car keys hung right by the front door. My phone was nearby, too. I grabbed both. I could see that the man had run back to his own apartment, which had a fire extinguisher in a glass case next to it. He shattered the glass casing and I remember the sharp clanging sound distinctly. I heard the glass shattering loud and clear. He grabbed the fire extinguisher, ran back over, and proceeded to put out the fire in the wok.

“Go!” he yelled at me. “Go!”

I saw the extinguisher in his hand as he stood over the burning wok. Quish– quish— the sound of the fire extinguisher.

I dashed into my car, a towel still wrapped around my hand, which still felt like it was on fire, and nursing it, I tried to drive with my left hand. I realize at this point I have no clue where the hospital is. I called my sister, who was over 3,000 miles away, to tell her to get online and navigate me to the nearest hospital, since I was in no condition to figure it out myself.

She did and it turned out the hospital was just around the corner. I was there in under 3 minutes. I drove myself up to the ER entrance, left the car out front with the blinkers on, and dashed into the hospital. I unraveled the towel from my hand and showed it to the nurses or attendants that were there. Right away, they shoved me into a wheelchair (while I protested, “No, my feet are fine… I can walk.”) and five nurses descended down on me, tending to my hand.

I sustained both second and third degree burns that had to be treated. I called Hubby, who got a ride from a friend to get to the hospital. The nurses had wanted me to stay overnight, but I opted not to. When I did get a chance to look at my hand, it looked like lasagna, or pepperoni pizza, or something. It was frightening to look at. Stupidly, I asked, “Is that going to leave a scar?” The nurses nodded sympathetically at me, “Yes, honey, it may leave scarring.”

When Hubby and I returned home with my bandaged club hand, he went to examine the wok that was still in the parking lot. I had already told him everything that happened.

“Did you say the guy used a fire extinguisher?” he asked me.

“Yes. He did. He shattered the glass and took it from…” I looked over at the exterior wall where the fire extinguisher was. It was still inside the glass casing, intact. Like nothing had happened. I shook my head. “No, no… I know I heard glass shattering. He ran– I saw– no, this doesn’t make any sense.”

We looked around for another possible explanation, like maybe a second fire extinguisher in the vicinity. There weren’t any.

“Well, get inside and get to bed,” said Hubby. “We can sort this out tomorrow.”

Plus, it was too late into the night/early morning to be knocking on our neighbor’s door. I figured I’d thank him tomorrow.

First thing the next morning, I went over to Suite 111 to ring the doorbell and knock on the front door. “Excuse me, sir? This is the girl next door, from Suite 109?” Nothing. No answer. I could see somewhat through the slit in the blinds that the apartment appeared empty. No furniture, nothing.

After work that day, I went straight to the condominium’s management office to inquire about Suite 111. I explained everything that happened and said simply that I wanted the chance to thank the man who lived in Suite 111, who helped me out in a rather exigent moment of need.

“Ma’am, even if I could give you the information you’re looking for, there’s nothing to give you. No one lives in Suite 111. It’s been vacant for the past year.”

Um. What?

Where our condo was located, there was our Suite 109, then over one, Suite 111. Past Suite 111 was the end of the complex, sealed in by an iron fence. There was no other rational explanation for where the man could have come from or even where he could have obtained a fire extinguisher. Plus, again, I heard the shattering of glass, and yet, there was the fire extinguisher, right by Suite 111, exactly where I had seen it that night, but wholly intact.

The next few months Hubby and I kept on the lookout for any signs of life from Suite 111, our next door suite, because I really wanted to thank the guy. The kind of place we lived, the vast majority of folks there would never bother rushing out their front door to help someone in the middle of the night. So this guy went over and beyond the call of duty. And he needed to be thanked for that.

Yet we never saw any signs of life, and management seemed to be telling us the truth– Suite 111 was vacant and remained vacant the whole time Hubby and I lived in that complex. That, there, is another oddity. We were living in a condominium complex that was in high demand. Friends of ours who also lived in the same complex would chat with us about how management kept driving up the rent prices and how there was a wait list for those trying to get in. Odd. Then why was Suite 111 vacant? Still to this day I don’t have an explanation.

Now, as for my burnt hand and scarring–the thing I was worried about the most–Hubby lovingly took care of it every morning and every night. We had to remove the old dressings every night, put creams and stuff on the wounds, and rewrap the hand in new dressings.

I couldn’t even bear to look at my own hand, so every night before bed, I’d extend out my arm at Hubby, look the other way, shut my eyes, and Hubby would tend to the dressings. It was that disgusting looking. I just kept fearing how bad the scarring would be and what cosmetic remedies might be available to me.

More than half a year after the incident, my hand was still bandaged.

I do have photos of the lasagna-pizza hand (as I refer to it), but it’s probably not appropriate for public posting. Plus, I don’t know where that file of photos are. Hubby has them on his computer. The only photos I could find readily are the ones above, which was already many months after the incident.

Here’s the most miraculous part of it all. The burning did not leave behind any scars at all. Nothing. After the doctors said I could go 100% bandage-free, Hubby and I braced ourselves for what the hand would look like. Yet. No bumps, no pocks, not even any discoloration. Here’s my hand today:

The only thing the incident caused was for one of the little birthmarks on my hand to be burned clear off. I used to have a birthmark on my hand, near my index finger knuckle, and I hated that birthmark. Every time I looked at it, I’d think, “maybe I should get that removed or something.” The incident had burned away the birthmark.

* * *

I’ve had other experiences in life before the one I’ve mentioned here that might better fit a classical understanding of “paranormal,” but this is the one incident that continues to remain a giant question mark in my mind. I want a rational explanation for where that man came from. Did the glass of the fire extinguisher case really shatter and did the man (now assuming he is real) grab for it and help me put out the fire? I heard the sounds. How could I have heard the sounds?

Over the years, I’ve tried to convince myself that it didn’t happen the way I remember, since that is the only logical explanation. In my state of pain, I must have conjured up illusions. Though that doesn’t explain who resolved the fire in the wok. It wasn’t me. Technically, I left it burning in the parking lot. Yet I did so because I swear I saw that man tending to it and he yelled at me to “Go! Go to the hospital. Now!”

And even if all that was made up, a figment of my imagination, what about my affinity with 11 and the suite number being 111? Also, illusions don’t explain how well my hand healed after second and third degree burns. I have friends who accidentally burned a sliver of skin from a hot oven, skillet, soup, or a cigarette, and it has left permanent marks. How did I effectively set my own hand on fire and it didn’t leave a scratch? In fact, the great bonus– it took away this birthmark I didn’t like!

So that’s why it’s the story I recount when I think of paranormal experiences.

Because this post has gone on long enough, I’ll wrap up here, and continue the intuitive tag some time in the future, in Part 2.

My Part 2 of the Intuitive Tag here.