I have no beef with the Amish. (I don't have beef with anyone really.) We live our lives in parallel universes (universi?). We are aware of each other and curious, but avoid eye contact. We exist kind of like two strange dogs, making sideways glances and a butt sniff or two, but that's as far as it goes. (This was just a bad simile. I don't recommend Amish butt-sniffing, seriously, they bathe once a week.) I only see them when I go to the Wal-Mart in St. Johns or take a stroll through Ovid Elsie.
The one thing that I do notice is that they seem to change their own rules in order to incorporate more and more modern conveniences. I've seen them on rollerblades. Some of them can own cars (usually 15 passenger vans they load up and take to discount grocery stores). The cars have to be flat black, with no chrome.
Here's where the underwear come in (remember, from way back in the title?). Did you know that they buy their underwear at Wal-Mart? I know, it's an evil place, but they have a bigger selection and it's cheaper. Bite me. Some of us can't afford to shop politically. Anyway, I was underwear shopping and there was an Amish woman, with her daughter. I thought they had to make old-fashioned pantaloons out of handpicked cotton sewn with animal sinew as thread. I googled Amish underwear and apparently it's ok now to buy them premade at Wal-Mart. I'm happy to report that they chose big, white undies and not leopard print thongs. It would have made for a much more amusing blog, but oh well.
There are also a lot of Mennonites in Ovid Elsie. I like to call them Amish lite. They get to have more cool stuff. They typically dress like people who were dorks in high school. It's less noticeable that they aren't like the rest of us. The tip off is the prayer cap and sneakers with skirts. Never Nike's or Adidas, they always wear velcro KMart sneakers. (KMart which, if you recall is a perfect place to buy underwear, particularly at 400 Oak St. in Cincinnati. However, Rain Man was not Amish and I'm on a parenthetical tangent once again.)
