I Love the Amish...or at Least Their Markets

I'm sure if I got to know a few Amish people I'd find them to be very pleasant, agreeable people.  The few that I've met seemed to have big hearts and friendly natures.  But I've never had the opportunity to chat with them.  My interactions are usually far less social, restricted to requests for extra ketchup on my bison burger.

And that's really enough for me.  I love the purely financial, consumer relationship the Amish and I share.  The Amish market is a wonderland.  You need pie?  How about the greatest blueberry pie mankind has ever seen?  French fries?  Pah!  Try seasoned fried new potato slices slathered in some sort of delicious animal fat.  And the bison burgers?  Forget about it.  It's no wonder the early settlers nearly hunted the beasties to extinction.

But it's not just food.  Furniture, housewares, holiday gifts, and most other categories are represented (automobile accessories and electronics being the obvious exclusions.)  The Amish have the ability to take any given thing, and make it better than it's ever been made before.  It's seems almost compensatory, like a blind person's heightened other four senses.  By swearing off modern technology and simplifying their choices, they've developed the technology they do have into an immensely efficient toolset. "Aiy", they say.  "We may only have a handsaw, a pair of tweezers, and a grinding wheel, but we'll make you a chair better than anything your 'Herman Miller' could ever make."

The only downside is the hours, at least at the Amish market near us.  They're open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.  That's it.  How can they do that to us?  That's like Chuck E. Cheese telling kids they can only come in on Mondays after 11PM, or ABC airing a new episode of "Lost" every seventh odd-numbered Wednesday only.  Torture.

So, Amish god, consider this a formal petition.  I, and the millions of others who live for your macaroni and cheese and meatloaf sandwiches, hereby affix our names and beseech you to allow your children to do what they do second best.  Sell us great stuff.  Please grant them more time to sell us what they do best; they take the mundane and make it great.

Thanks, Amish god.  You rock.