In Which Miss Jill Has An Ill-Fated Flirtation With the Occult

When I was in elementary school I was really good friends with “Lola,” the girl from across the street. Her mom spent the entire day on the couch, rotating halter and tube tops, and smoked and drank while watching several hours worth of soap operas. One day on the swing set Lola lamented, “You are so lucky that your mom doesn’t dress like someone from the seventies.” I’m pretty sure that my luck didn’t end there.

One day I was over there playing with Lola and her mom took a brief break from Days of Our Lives to Say, “Kids, I have a super fun game for us to play. Come into the dining room.” We went into the dining room, where a board with random letters on it and “Yes” and “No” was waiting for us on the table. “Put your hands on this device (I don’t know what to call it) so we can ask it questions about our future. It told me who to marry.*” As I was seven or eight at the time, it seemed like a good idea.

When I got home, I told my mother about the fun game that I had learned and was surprised to discover that I had spent the entire afternoon calling on the powers of the Destroyer. Even randomly reading encyclopedias to learn about forbidden topics was not sufficient preparation for a Ouija board encounter.

I didn’t learn my lesson from that experience and at a seventh grade sleep over it reared its devilish head again. This is a story that goes against everything that the New Era (Mormon magazine for teens that once featured several articles about choosing a spouse) holds dear. Middle School isn’t necessarily the best time for people to assert their unique beliefs, so I stayed silent as my friends crafted a Ouija board out of cardboard and a glass. As they started to ask it questions, I panicked and started singing church songs in my head. The Ouija board didn’t work and my friends started to get frustrated with the spirits for not revealing the truth about their crushes. I left the room for a few minutes to go to the bathroom and when I returned they announced enthusiastically, “It worked! You missed it! As soon as you left the room it started moving!” Amen.

* He would prove to be abusive and I have some distant memory of police involvement.