Portable Kitchen Island Reportedly Haunted

A Long Island housewife recently discovered that her portable kitchen island has become the perfect babysitter for her children.

“I swear, at first I thought I was simply losing my mind and my memory,” Juanita Krebs, a resident of Glen Head, told reporters. “I kept finding my dark-wood Crosley in the strangest places: in the shower, under the rhododendrons, tucked behind the wood stove in the living room, or in Marty’s doghouse—she’s our English sheepdog.”

The cabinet is vintage mahogany with a stainless steel top. “We’ve had it for five years—we got it at the Costco in Holbrook,” Mrs. Krebs said. “It’s been great.” Her husband Harold commutes into Manhattan where he works for Metropolitan Life as an insurance adjuster, specializing in industrial liability.

It turned out the traditional-style culinary cabinet was entertaining Tiffany, 9, and Jacob, 6, by playing hide-and-seek with them.

“It’s great fun,” Jacob said. “It never comes looking for us, but it seems to enjoy finding weird places for us to find it at.” Tiffany agrees: “Yeah, the funniest place we ever found it was in the trunk of Daddy’s Miata.”

Tiffany and Jacob have taken to calling their kitchen island friend “Woodie,” because of the solid hardwood and veneer construction with a natural dark finish. Jacob says he likes to hang his G.I. Joe dolls from the matching towel bars on the ends. “Woodie” likes to race the kids down the hall and then lock its casters so that they overshoot it, they said.

Mort Dunleavy, a professor of retail appliance and furniture studies at Adelphi University, says it is not unusual for furniture to participate in childrearing, although it’s more common among living room and dining area fixtures. “Easy chairs especially tend to fall into that avuncular role,” Dunleavy reports. “Apart from toasters, you don’t often see kitchen appliances, especially large ones, take an interest in children.”

In fact, experts say, it’s statistically more likely that kitchen furniture will turn on pre-teens rather than find common ground with them. “Drawers have been known to snap shut on curious little fingers, and stovetop warning lights will purposely shut down in order to inflict burns on children,” Dr. Phyllis Sheafley, a specialist in inanimate psychology states in her book, When Divans Cry.

Harold Krebs said his wife seems much calmer when he comes home these days, because she doesn’t have to worry about where the kids are throughout the day, on top of her volunteer activities and bridge club. “The portable kitchen island has just made us a happier, healthier family,” he said. “We’re thinking of taking it with us on our vacation to Cabo.”