There's something strange in the Diva house this summer. The neighbors report its ghostly sightings late at night. The only evidence visible on the outside of the house of horrors of its existence is a trail of soda cans in the front lawn and the sickening sound of the washing machine churning the extra laundry.

Is it a phantom? Only on garbage days when he's no where to be seen. A mummy wrapped in the huge grocery receipts it produces?

No, my friends, it's something far more frightening. It's…The Intern.

This is not an Alfred Hitchcock movie, but trust me, his room alone is scary enough to warrant the title.

Our 20 year old nephew is serving an internship nearby for college credit, so it was natural that he join us here in the crazy house for his real education. And while he isn't exactly a monster, after living with him for 4 months, I've discovered he does have some rather terrifying behaviors.

Sometimes I think he's a vampire. When not at work, he sleeps all day and stays up all night. But if he wakes up too early, then he stumbles around like Frankenstein and grunts monosyllables at us. He must get that slightly green color to his skin by all of the money he seems to eat.

The magical way he makes a pan of brownies disappear suggests he's a warlock. He furiously texts others in the coven with what can only be some sort of ancient and archaic code since I can't figure out what he's saying. Bizarre chants bellow from the cave he calls a room, and he must have cast a spell over the rational mind of the girl who keeps calling here, whom we affectionately refer to as, "The Intern-ette." However, if he is in fact a witch, I wish he'd pick up a broomstick more often.

He can startle me when he's not even in the room. He'll change the ring tones on my phone, or the wallpaper with his picture on it, the little imp. We trip over his Bigfoot shoes and the bathroom looks like a pack of werewolves got loose in a Rogaine factory. It's the stuff of nightmares.

But perhaps "monster" is too harsh of a word. Maybe he's more akin to an alien being. He sort of landed here and is learning our ways while we try to figure him out. On his planet they must lack olfactory and ocular nerves as he can walk past an overflowing garbage can with out smelling or seeing it. It must be a planet far from the sun since his spacecraft doesn't have air conditioning and he so he is constantly borrowing ours. Fossil fuels must only be found on Earth since he can't seem how to figure out filling the gas tank back up when he's through, either.

My toddler thinks he's the Boogey man, screaming every blessed time he walks past her. The boys wrestle him like Godzilla. But the baby must see him as a loveable King Kong as he cradles her in one hand as she smiles from around the bottle he's feeding her.

But I guess I must be one of those freaks that hang out at horror comic book shows or dress up at Wes Craven movie premieres, because I sure am going to miss him when he's gone. I'll miss the daily pop culture lesson. Grocery store stops on the way home from work and how he just materializes when I need a bottle heated or a burp cloth. He makes me laugh with his idiotic fraternity wisdom and his countdown to his 21st birthday. And it is particularly endearing when he eats every bite gratefully of whatever I put in front of him. I'll especially miss the way he never fails to kiss the kids goodnight or goodbye when he doesn't know I'm looking.

My only comfort after he's gone will be the smell from under his bed which will continue to haunt me the rest of my days. It'll be like he never left.

©2007 Tracey Henry