Mama and the "Hex"

I know ya'll are waiting for this one so I thought I'd better get on it.

Long ago, in the dark ages of my youth, my parents belonged to a commune.

Yes, you heard me right... a commune.

It seemed a very family oriented one to me at that time - lots of mommies, daddies and kids running around. Everyone working the land for the better good of the earth and humanity. I have since heard that there were other sections of the coomune there that went for the free love stuff, but I never saw any of that.

I will tell ya right now that my folks left the actual commune setting while I was about 5 or so and had totally departed from the culture and leanings by the time I was out of elementary school so I'm not completely warped or anything! :)

Nor do I drink goats milk or eat sprouts and wheatgrass juice. Let's also not forget the "homemade granola" which I remember as being nothing more than nuts and twigs thrown into a bowl of goats milk. (Nasty!) (Come on people, if you can raise goats, you can raise a COW!)

Okay. To the hexing.

My parents were a host family or something in this big 4 story house. Lots of families running around in it but I think we owned the house. (They managed to get a LOT of money out of Daddy.)

I had to share a room with a mean little girl who pulled the tail off my mostest favoritest stuffed doggy in the world - Taffy. Chunks of fake fur too. That nasty girl got worms one day. I was really pleased about that. Mama tried to fix the dog, but since she was never a homemaker, she sewed it on upside down. Poor old Taffy never wagged again.

Mama worked in the kitchen in this place - all the adults had "assignments". The kids had tiny little assignments and the rest of the time were left to run loose like hooligans. My assignment was to avoid the mean girl and her worms as much as possible.

Apparently Mama had a falling out with a gal who worked in the kitchen, and was also the wormy girl's mother (don't that just figure). She also, unbeknownst to us, practiced withcraft as a hobby. Now having a falling out with Mama is nearly impossible, a sweeter woman was never on this earth. She never got mad at anyone. Except ants. She hated ants. Used to come up with cruel and unusual ways to get rid of the hills.

Anywho....this gal got mad at my Mama and decided she'd show her. She went to her room and pulled her little cauldron out or whatever it is they do, and whipped up a hex. Right away Mama started getting hives, migraines, all sorts of ills. She couldn't figure it out. She felt right poorly.

But the silly gal that hexed her was so proud of herself she couldn't keep her pie hole shut and started blabbing about it all. Well, guess what... hexing is not allowed in the commune - doesn't go with the whole living with nature thing. She got kicked out and took her wormy kid with her. I was most pleased.

But it didn't end there of course, even with her gone Mama was still itchy and suffering with headaches. So Mama and I were packed off and sent to another state where they had a "detoxification" center or something to get rid of your bad Chakra. (I was very happy to get away since I was sure the worms were still there even though the mean girl was gone.

All I remember about this place was that their "homemade granola" had a worm in it (MORE DAMN WORMS!) that showed up in my bowl and I threw such a fit Mama broke down and went to the grocery store and bought me some junk cereal. Thank heavens! Still, Captain Crunch loses it's appeal when goat's milk is poured over it.

I don't remember how long we were there, but one day Mama announced she was "clean of the hex" and Daddy showed up and drove us away. He also announced we were moving out of the commune and into our own home in Mississippi. I cannot begin to express my relief to be done with the whole communal living thing! Of course, where did he move us to - and old Nudist retreat next to a KOA campground.

But that's a whole other story.

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(Note - I was quite young in this story and while I remember the commune and the detox center, I had to take the Hex story from what my Mama and Daddy said. For all I know Mama just came down with migraines and hives from all the damn goats milk.)


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You know, Idgie, in her past life as writer only, not editor, had quite a few stories squirrelled away in another site. You may see some of these get updated and moved over to the Dew. Perhaps Idg herself will become a contributing writer herself!