When I was 19, I was the manager of a restaurant in a small town on the Wisconsin shores of the Mississippi. While the restaurant itself was fairly new, the building was really old. I lived in the apartment above the restaurant and worked open-close every day.

The apartment looked as if it had last been renovated in the 1960′s. Aside from a few new appliances installed by the owner, the shag carpet and lime-green walls with mushrooms painted on them had a retro, spunky feel that was only found in small-town Wisconsin.

Initially, it was just small things that I barely noticed. My alarm would sporadically go off in the middle of the day, even though I never used an alarm. The doors of my entertainment center would be open when I went upstairs during my break, even though I never had time to watch the TV inside those doors. Lighters would appear on my vanity in the bathroom, …