Posted Feb 27, 09 12:10 PM
All About Ouija
The first time I ran across a ouija board was on the shelves at KayBee’s, right next to Vincent Price’s mug hocking Hangman. Parker Brothers’ “Mystifying Oracle” was $7.99 – 20% off.
But just what did this “game” do? You gotta give props to those phantasmic eyes on the box cover. And then there was either a cool crescent moon or a pair of hands spreading out from evening clouds. Fascinating stuff – especially to a third grader who never went to camp to get his brain stocked with all those firelight urban legends.
The name of the game I repeated to myself, with mystique : “OW-juh.”
Yeah. OW-juh.
Since, I’ve learned correct pronunciations -- “WEE-juh” or, in junior highs, “WEE-jee”. And that the game is kind of like Monopoly, except you don’t buy properties or utilities. You don’t go to jail. You don’t land on Free Parking. And you make small talk with spirits who are either dead people or demons.
I’ve always been a spiritual soul, but I still retain a sense of humor when normal skews paranormal and natural becomes supernatural. Of course, starchy society’s “that’s-not-a-toy-and-you-shouldn’t-be-playing-with-it”-ness casts a taboo shroud on ouija boards. That’s precisely why makeshift attempts at one were irresistible. After all, $7.99 back then was a lotta allowance.
I mimicked Scrabble tiles into arcs on the basement coffee table, inked the alphabet soup and numbers 0-9 on notebook scraps, inverted the old shot glass as a substitute planchette and propped my fingertips atop. Nothing moved. Eh, the occult’s a real stickler for having a genuine board. Each spirit is supposed to come with one. Or something like that. Anyone see the directions?
Thankfully, friends with relaxed parents are an excellent Plan B. Troy Mund lived down the street. His room was decorated in contemporary Depeche Mode, complete with a handy dresser-top voodoo doll; how I enjoyed calling out another friend’s name and systematically jamming the needle into the doll’s neck. Boys will be boys.
But Troy taught me ouija board etiquette that would make Gloria Vanderbilt proud --
Don’t ask the board if someone sitting next to you is going to die. Very bad manners.
Ask questions that yield short answers. Not essays! Index fingers get worn out dragging the oracle around and around the Yes/No/Goodbyes. Scratch up your own playing surface, pal.
Don’t ask the board “who are you?” You’re likely to get a lofty reply from a smart aleck entity with issues of grandeur. Yeah, like the devil himself is going to drop everything and sit in with some teenagers on a Saturday night.
Don’t ask the board when someone’s going to make a half-decent ouija board flick. Witchboard has its moments before mortgaging itself on special effects. In overproduced fare like Amityville II: The Possession, the board gets trucked out for only one requisite scene, the end result requiring dire maid service. In terms of horror concepts, ouija – somehow -- is the unspoken red-headed stepchild.
Finally, don’t ask the board “can we see you?”
A hometown English teacher – the kind of disciplinarian whom you, but not your friends, were spared – claimed she and her chums made that mistake back in their high school days. She lived in an even smaller small town, the kind of place where everyone literally knew everyone. At 2 a.m. during a weekend slumber party, one of her group asked if they could meet the spirit.
The planchette guided them to “yes”.
Where, they nervously persisted.
The planchette smoothly, unhesitantly spelling out a street corner just a short driving distance away.
Once-giggly girls now scared-tight argued and piled into the family car, not hitting any stoplights on the way to this sinister rendezvous.
As the vehicle drew near, the girls hushed, wide-eyed. On the spelled-out street corner, a lone figure in silhouetted coat and silhouetted brim waited – a patient shadow.
The car sped passed. Upon returning safely to their beds, the girls threw the ouija board into the trash. And. Never. Played. Again.
Or so it goes.
Meanwhile, south of the railroad tracks, was the Plan B of Plan B. Alvin, of course, had his own ouija board. Sometimes I wondered if he and his spirit were going out for coffee. Alvin claimed that the board told him he’d lose his virginity to his classmate Stephanie, and that Alvin would make finals in State Speech in Poetry but take 2nd place to a girl named “Sophie”.
Who needs a Magic 8 Ball?
Posted by Mike Kalvoda at 12:10 PM