ArcaMax

The Amish are better than you. They're better than me, too.

This is because the Amish make furniture.

For the last couple years, every time I turn the television on, there's a commercial from a local retailer telling me they sell "Amish furniture."

"Experience the craftsmanship of the Amish," the announcer's deep voice says. Then the ad shows a picture of a dining room table with six chairs.

Commercials are always asking me to "experience" something.

I'm supposed to experience fine German engineering when I drive, and I'm supposed to experience creaminess when I eat yogurt.

You know who doesn't want me to experience anything? The people who sell me frozen chicken nuggets don't.

What are they gonna put on the package?

"In an extremely flat part of Nebraska, a man named Julio drives to his job at a chicken processing plant. His feet are freezing because it's 10 below, and there's a big hole in the floorboard of his 13-year-old Toyota. He's on his way to his 12-hour shift. He'll be paid for eight hours because that's what his timecard is gonna show if he knows what's good for him."

"Uncle Homer's Homestyle Chicken Nuggets," the announcer's deep voice says. "Experience the craftsmanship of exhausted illegals with faked time cards."

You're lucky if you don't find Julio's breaded thumb in the package of nuggets.

That's the difference between an "undocumented person" and an "illegal." An undocumented person is being interviewed on television after graduating from Yale. An illegal is cutting chickens in half on the night shift for crap money.

Not so with the Amish furniture. I checked. Amish furniture is better than, say, Episcopal furniture, because the Amish make their furniture in small workshops, the way everything used to be made before humans got smart and invented machines to make everything.

And you? What do you make, ya lazy Methodist? You don't make anything, right? You don't have a small workshop that smells like sawdust and beard hair. You sell real estate. Your idea of "craftsmanship" is talking a young couple into buying a home with no closets that is located in a neighborhood zoned "residential/gun store/ strip club."

Amish furniture is expensive, too. This is so that, if you're a lapsed Catholic who has made a lot of money selling substandard, Chinese-made wheelchairs to the disabled at inflated Medicaid prices, you can experience the craftsmanship of people who are better than you are.

That's the American way. If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em.

No one really knows what it's like to be Amish, and the Amish aren't interested in explaining themselves. You're going to hell. They're not. Close the book. Turn out the lights.

Thank God we can experience the Amish through their furniture, otherwise we might think of them solely in terms of chin beards, buggies and big hats.

And that's not fair. Everyone's got something to sell. I'm selling this column. You're selling cars. The Amish are selling furniture.

If you're lucky, you have a brand behind you. "The craftsmanship of the Amish." The Ford badging on the cars. That stuff.

That's Julio's problem. No brand. He didn't even use his real name when he applied for the job at the chicken plant. If he ever has to get another job, he won't be Julio again. The Amish are shaping your new furniture with a chisel and a small hammer. Julio's almost at the gates.

To find out more about Marc Dion, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Mean Old Liberal." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.