Eat. Ouija Board. Cupcakes.

A few years back, I wrote little stories about moments in my history that I feel contributed to shaping who I am as a person. I have gratitude for my past. It has shaped who I am today, for the better. This little anecdote is perhaps a perfect little bite that illustrates the beauty, uniqueness, and loveliness that was my magnificent Mom.

I am a baker.  I am not a professional baker, but a woman who loves to mix up ingredients that (especially) make one fine ass cookie.  In fact, the perfect cookie. My cookies have been called as such.  Don’t envy, just enjoy.

My Mom loved to bake, too.  I learned through her that it is important to bake for people on their birthdays.  And I did, and often still do.  I bake for friends, family members, and if I like my coworker, treats on their birthdays, too.   I have this thing for birthdays.  It may be linked to my interest in astrology, but that’s for another story. 

So, Mom baked…she baked quite a bit.  There were a handful of recipes she would make from scratch, like….Emmie Miller’s pound cake.  You can’t go wrong with Emmie.  Our family was on a first-name basis with this cake and we always wondered, “who in the hell is Emmie Miller?”   We never learned, but she did have one hell of a cake recipe. 

When I was a kid, Mom was always a room mother- for all 8 of her children.  She’d be there to help with all sorts of activities, events, special occasions at school, sewing things, coaching a girls softball team, of which she knew very little about sports, typing up the monthly school newsletter…. you name it, she did it. But then there was when she would bake cupcakes for us to take to school for our birthdays.  This was when kids didn’t have peanut or gluten allergies, and they could eat cupcakes and drink the day-glo red Hawaiian punch that she sent us to school with.

It was my 6th birthday, and while I was having this awesome Mickey Mouse themed birthday party with most of my class and family that weekend, Mom baked cupcakes for me to take into class to celebrate.  See, these weren’t any ordinary cupcakes.  They were magical cupcakes.  No, she wasn’t into ‘shrooms, she was into contacting people from the “the other side”.  Mom and her girlfriends would use an ouija board during their “sex and booze” club nights.  This is what Dad called their get-togethers.

The cupcake tray was an ouija board.  The device to deliver the most delicious yellow cake cupcakes with amply swirled creamy milk chocolate frosting (my favorite combination) was a witchboard- a device to communicate with spirits.   Mom was clever, she took a large metal Tupperware serving tray and on the back etched:

YES                         NO

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

1234567890

GOODYBYE

It was quite noticeable on the bottom of this tray. I didn’t think anything of it because it was my Mommy’s and that’s what we used for cupcakes.  When I got to school and handed Ms. Grass, my 1st-grade teacher, the tray of cupcakes, she noticed the bottom of the tray and quickly moved her hands away.  

“What is that?”, she stammered.  

“ It’s a cupcake tray”, I replied.  

“What does it say on the bottom of the tray?”, she persisted.  

“This is what my Mommy uses to talk to Grandma’s and Uncle Johnny’s angels, and it’s a cupcake tray.  Oh, and sometimes she uses it to put hamburgers on when we eat dinner outside.”,  I said matter-of-factly.

Her mouth dropped, she quickly pulled her hands away from the tray, clutched her chest. Ms. Grass took a few steps back, and sternly pointed for me to put the cupcake tray down on the corner table.  

After lunch recess, everyone sang happy birthday to me as I stood there beaming with a pink construction paper crown on my head and my Sears pretty plus, chubby girl blue corduroy jumper on.  I was happy, it was my birthday and I was eating cupcakes.  A 6 year old’s’ dream.  Ms. Grass never ate one of those cupcakes.  She was genuinely freaked out by the Ouija Board Cupcake tray.

That tray would live on for another few years, but like so many things in our childhood, it magically disappeared. I often wonder what happened to it.  Knowing Mom, she got all Catholic school girl paranoid and threw it away.