Those Amish sure are a bunch of troublemakers

Everyone thinks the Amish are so admirable, but I'm starting to have my doubts.

Let's start with so-called "Amish Friendship Bread." What kind of friend gives you a gift that takes ten days to make, then turns out to taste so delicious that you eat an entire sugar- and fat-laden loaf in one day?

Sure, it's no problem for the Amish to eat this stuff. They're churning their own butter, walking everywhere, shaking the rugs out by hand, building hand-made wooden furniture. I'm sure they get a good workout just living their life. For those of us living in the high-tech, automated world, this bread is headed straight to our thighs.

As I added the ingredients on day 10, I had to wonder if this is truly an Amish recipe anyway--after all, you make it in plastic Zip-lock bags. And, am I to believe that the Amish keep their pantries stocked with boxes of Jell-O instant pudding? (After some online research, I learned that people used to let the starters ferment in glass jars rather than plastic bags, and some recipes do not call for instant pudding.)

Then there's all that aforementioned wooden furniture that my mother-in-law is always bringing to my house. Wooden rocking airplane, wooden 3-in-1 rocking horse/high chair/desk, wooden potty with built-in magazine rack.

Super cute, good quality stuff, sure. But who has room for all of this stuff? And no wonder my kids take so long to potty-train. Who wants to sit on a slab of wood to relieve themselves?