When Good Yuppies Go Amish

As Stringtown Grocery comes into view
Yuppie daddy points at the black buggies;
Horses tethered to the rail, nodding to each other,
Slightly swinging their necks, snorting impatiently
As though engaged in a wordless conversation.

"Hey Posse!  What goes
Clip Clop Clip Clop Clip Clop

Bang!

Clip Clop Clip Clop Clip Clop?"

Without lifting his eyes from his Gameboy
His son responds with bored indifference.
"What?"

"An Amish drive-by," his old man responds,
Grinning foolishly after delivering the punch line.

His son dignifies his dad's effort with a slight chuckle;
His daughter bristles with haughty embarrassment.
Her dad calls his kids "his posse,"
"His Homeys."
He has no idea how ridiculous he sounds,
Striving to be "cool" and failing in his attempts
As miserably as an air conditioner lacking Freon.
She just wishes that her father would realize
That he's reached that annoying age of dotage
That parents reach when one becomes a teen-ager;
The age where they should be seen, but not heard
And certainly not listened to.

'Aren't you coming in, Gary?" the dad asks.

"I'll just sit here and play my Gameboy."

"Come in with us," his dad cajoles him.
Anxious as Clark Griswold to make this day
A most memorable family outing.
"You might meet some hot Amish chick."

His son grunted the most skeptical of snorts;
Then his mind begins to wander toward
Fantasies of Playboy's Miss April,
He imagines her wearing an Amish bonnet,
Her ample breasts swelling, as if yearning
To burst the restraint of her bodice;
A veritable virginal prairie Venus
Longing for just the right young man
To step out of the pages of a romance novel,
Saunter into the store, make eye contact with her
And maybe ask her out to a forbidden movie.
Inside the theatre she'd remove her bonnet,
Let her long black hair tumble down her shoulders,
And make out passionately with her English lover.

"Yeah, I guess I'll come in with you guys,"
He sighed, putting on a show of acting as resigned
As one of Fox's Martyrs being led to the stake.
A sacrifice to dad's concept of family togetherness.

The earnest-looking bonneted young girl
Behind the grocery check-out counter
Failed to live up to young Gary's vivid imagination.
Plain and simple without a hint of sexy.

Inside the store his parents both began to wallow
In the Amish experience to the point of looking
Ludicrous.  Gary was so mortified.
His dad was kneeling on the floor,
Chatting on his cell phone with one of his golf buddies
About the different kinds of trail mix for sale.

"They have a cranberry nut with yogurt chips,
Mixed dried fruit with little pineapple chunks,
And a mix of raisins, craisins and granola."
People actually had to step around him. 
Gary was sort of hoping someone would give him
A little nudge with their foot.  He certainly would have.

Gary grabbed a couple bags of gummi worms,
Then dropped them into his old man's cart.
He'd have fun grossing his sister out with them later,
Dangling them from his mouth, or from his nose.

Caitlin glared at her mother as she read the labels
Of spices and teas packaged in little plastic tubs.
Mom was enunciating the names annoyingly loud,
Sounding like some grade school kid called upon
To read a portion of a book to her classmates.

"Catnip, Chamomile, Spruce Needle, Fennel,
Echinacea, Rose Hip, Licorice Root, Thistle..."
Yeah, Mom was babbling into her phone as well.

They filled their cart with treats to take home,
A Yuppie hunting-gathering expedition;
Bologna, cheese, ripe tomatoes, homemade fudge,
A caramel roll, pretzel balls, a rhubarb pie;
As if consumerism could lead to contentment,
As if a stuffed stomach could be the answer
To filling that void of spiritual emptiness
That they're sometimes too acutely aware of.
That missing intangible "something"
That perhaps the Amish have found.

Such foolish vanity to expect to comprehend
The nuances of a culture in an afternoon visit.
Everyone lugs their own upbringing, education,
Prejudices and presuppositions with them
Like sets of outdated luggage that contain
Too many experiences to let go of
To pick up and lug around someone elses.
Urban attitudes cling to these folks as stubbornly
As the odor of booze and cigarettes does
Long after one has left a tavern's smoky confines.

As they leave the grocery, the yuppie daddy
Motions toward yet another horse and buggy.

"Hey homeys!
\What goes Clip Clop Clip Clop Clip Clop

Bang!

Clip Clip Clop Clip Clop Clip Clop?"

This time he uses his index finger as a pistol barrel
To punctuate the gunshot in his joke.

Then they climb into their mommy van;
Plastic people with their plastic phones,
Plastic toys and plastic purchasing power;
Their vehicle, lives and mind-sets
As alien to Amishland
As the tattered Wal-Mart bag
Snagged on a branch of a hackberry tree
That reaches out to stretch across the gravel road
That meanders slowly out to the Country Store.