Those kids are plastic!
Fall 1998 University of New Mexico geology department road trip. Picture a vanload of grizzly young men (and a few young women) in Amish country, eastern Pennsylvania, on their way from Baltimore to Toronto. (Don’t ask me, something about cheap airfare.) Leaves are falling. People are raking leaves. At one house, two Amish kids are in front raking leaves into a pile, while in the back, an Amish man seems to be having a rough time handling a horse. Two geo students notice something odd, something strange about the two Amish tykes. It isn’t long before the van is further down the road that the two exclaim, independently of each other and yet simultaneously, “Those kids are plastic!” Now used in two situations: (1) whenever something you thought was real turns out to be plastic (this happens more than you think) or (2) whenever you see something impossibly clichéd going on (i.e., happy children diligently raking leaves on a bright fall day).
– Soosan (December 2, 1998)
Tags: amish | exclamation | personal