The Devil went down to Georgia

It seems the saga of the little witch has ended, tragically before gaining national attention like our runaway bride, hostage survivor, possible rapist, and crane man. To the best of my ability, I will recap the entire story with all the conflicting details I have been able to e-glean since it happened. The names have been changed to make the situation funnier than it already is.

A friend of mine (we’ll call him Rupert) enrolled his younger daughter (age 13, who we’ll call Hermione) into a baptist xtian summer camp. This was wrong. On Tuesday Rupert was called away from work to drive about 300 miles round trip to retrieve Hermione, who was booted from camp for practicing witchcraft.

An older girl (Twit) who didn’t care for Hermione coerced some dumb boy (Lumpy) into bugging Hermione, possibly by making some advances on her. When she rejected him, he took the only available mature option and slapped the bible from her hand, dislodging the CD cover she was using as a bookmark. The picture on the cover prompted him to cry witch, to which she responded by jinxing him. I don’t think she actually hexed him, she merely informed Lumpy that he had been cursed. Some accounts say he later developed some red spots on his hand, probably a bug bite but enough to create a panic amongst the narrow minded. Twit gleefully echoed the accusation, beginning the witch hunt proper. At some point Lumpy and Twit also threw in some vague allegations of homosexuality for good measure. (Note to boys – calling a disinterested girl a lesbian almost never works.) Twit’s grandmother, the pastor’s wife, became involved and ran to the aid of her darling and forever innocent little angel and had Hermione cast out of their cult. Camp, I meant. Lousy typos. If only I could remember where I left the delete key.

The evidence against Hermione seemed insurmountable: Spell casting (her quick retort), Satanic imagery (CD cover art), questionable poetry (lyrics inside the cover), and a baseless accusation of homosexuality. What jury staffed with judgmental and hysterical xtian nutters wouldn’t convict?

Being the victims in this case, Twit was not punished for her role and Lumpy got away with a red blotchy curse. I would have recommended the bat bogey curse for both, but Hermione is only thirteen and her powers are probably not up to that level just yet. Rupert temporarily restricted Hermione from watching television and using the Internet in the hopes that it would brighten her sullen teenaged disposition, a move which should give her more time to study her spell books and listen to death metal.

I am reminded of another situation from my youth when I was roughly the same age as Hermione. My mother dragged us to yet another church, a Mormon one this time, and I was in bible study for my age group. The church liked to move groups around a lot for some reason; read a verse, move to another room, pray, swap chairs with another group, sing a song, go for a walk. Being new, I attracted the attention of the local jerk (Asswad) who took every opportunity to pester and tease me while I tried to behave and follow the Sunday school teachers’ instructions as they pretended not to notice us. When we moved from one place to another I tried to hang back and put some bodies in between us, but he caught on to that maneuver quickly and always made sure we were separated by no more than one chair. Finally he snatched my bible from my hands and sat a few seats away from me just before the next session of service began. I tried to quietly get it back, but he only lapsed into a giggling fit and began tearing out pages. When they moved us again I jumped forward in line, grabbed my bible back and knocked him down in the process. Some iron beehived old biddy, one of the power centers of that church, pulled us both aside and bitched us out for awhile. She started with me (I don’t remember a thing she said), then turned on him, pointing out the fact that he was always causing trouble. At that point I wondered why I was in trouble since she knew Asswad to be such an instigator.

I am now reminded of an old African proverb that claims it takes a village to raise a child. I disagree. Villages have drunks and idiots. You may as well just deposit your kid on the doorstep of the local pedophile and say “She yours for the next few hours. Treat her right.”

Another old phrase comes to mind: “I would rather light a candle than curse your darkness.” I can do both simultaneously so that doesn’t really apply here.

I’m not sure if anything further ever happened to Asswad, but I got a brutal tongue lashing on the way home, partially for embarrassing my mother but mostly for not doing more damage to the other kid. “You should have stomped his guts out” was the only specific admonition I remember. If only I had thought to curse him then maybe I would have been ejected from that church (which is exactly what I wanted from every church we ever attended).

That Hermione is one sharp kid. I can’t wait to follow her example during the next office meeting. “Disgruntled, am I? Well, a hex-a-poo, a hex-a-poo on you!”

Final note – my mother screamed at me every time I fought and didn’t permanently maim my opponent. A lot of you are probably shaking your head at this point thinking “Well THAT explains a lot.” To which I say – Shut up! I’ll fuckin’ kill ya!

Other final note – :p