Polygs n' Me

"Do you Brenda, Trish and Angie promise to love, honor and obey this old dude no matter how wrinkled up and nasty his business might be?"

Note: this one starts off kind of dull and informational, but hang in there, the jokes will eventually come.

Polygamy is getting to be big news anymore, you got this Warren Jeffs character (lucky for him he was born into Polygamy, because that dude couldn't get laid in Vegas with a brief case full of Benjamins) He's high on the list of the FBI's most wanted and I just saw on the news last night that the Arizona cops are trying to arrest the pligs on their side of the border for "having sex with underaged girls" because in Arizona polygamy is "legal." Being a Utahn that just totally pisses me off, because Utah is the brunt of every plig joke in the book, and yet in Arizona you can have all the wives you can stomach. So next time you go to make a Mormon/Polyg joke just remember, at least it's against the law in Utah.

For those of you somewhere else in the world who watch Big Love on HBO and therefore imagine that any Mormon even in a big city can buy 3 houses in a row and drive home from work trying to decide if they feel like boning the older but smoulderingly sexual Jeanne Tripplehorn, the sassy bedroom-eyed Chloe Sevigny (Sevigny is actually an ancient bigamist practice where a man is required to have seven wives) or the spunky, sweet and fresh-faced Ginnifer Goodwin. I'll admit that I enjoy the show myself, but do try to remember that it is a work of Fiction about as true to life as the Teletubbies.

Polygamists, (except for the one's on the lamb) like Jeffs – live in two cities on the Utah Arizona Border – Colorado City Az and Hilldale Ut. It used to be that if the residents would start getting hassled by the Utah police they'd all drive over and live in their Arizona houses and vice versa. For a long time, they pretty much kept to themselves, and for the most part law enforcement officials sort of left them alone. As for the women folk - they look about as much like Jeanne Tripplehorn as I do. You've probably seen news footage – they're pretty much required to cover every inch of their skin except for their faces, and in most cases they should just go ahead and cover those up while they're at it. They all wear their hair pulled back in buns or braids and wear gingham (Little House on the Prairie) dresses over denim pants and gym shoes. A practice intended to stanch out vanity and make them as unattractive to outsiders as possible. It's working fellas, they're all yours.

The men are a little harder to spot, but to the trained eye they don't blend in so well. It is mostly true that they're very hard-working, industrious, business-minded and mostly rich. I guess to some the notion of being rich and having several wives whom wait on you hand and foot probably seems like an attractive proposition. Myself, I'm on my second wife and if there's one thing I can say without the slightest inkling of a doubt, is that one wife is more than enough wifeness for me.

Still I'm more or less a "live and let live" kind of guy and the thing I find the most amusing about the situation is how weird us monogamists get when we encounter a group of Polys. I live in a pretty metropolitan city as far as Utah goes and when a plig speaks of goin' to town for supplies, I live in that town. Our community is predominantly a retirement mecca, so most folks are polite in general and freaked out in particular by polygamists, to the point that it also manifests itself as politeness. Just the other night I was out to dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant with a group of my wife's family and just as our food arrived so did a sizeable party of P's who were seated right next to our table. A good 30 of ‘em. Dressed to the fives and scrubbed to the point of rosy red steel-wool cheeks. As expected, I was the model of politeness, only sneaking a peak at them every now and then and pretty much going about my meal as though I didn't notice anything in the least bit unusual. If I glanced in their direction I was sure to be wearing my pleasant little "how's it going" smile and avoiding anything other than fleeting eye-contact. I thought that was awfully bigamy. Granted, I know very little about our multi-matrimonial neighbors, but I don't know why I've got to go around pretending like I don't notice them. I could've just as well been non-chalauntly munching on my eggroll next to a tableful of Martians. It's like the "Coneheads – they really don't blend in so well." Zoe, my 7 year old, precocious and outspoken to a frightening fault daughter, took the opportunity to ask my wife if they still have pioneers? Just loud enough to get a sympathetic chuckle from the P's.

Still there exists this awkward code of silence between our two tribes. Personally, I'd like to tear that wall down. There is an ugly side to their lifestyle that I'll go over here in a minute, but I've had a few dealings with them in my day, business and otherwise and found them to be decent, honorable people--certainly not unapproachable. So what's the big damn deal? Hell, I've had a little experience with "plural marriage" myself--I'm on my second wife. So why can't I just go up to one of them and ask, "so what's it like having seven wives, man? Shit, because, as far as I'm concerned, one is more than plenty, y'know? And what's up with the "Little House on the Prairie" dress code? That went out in the 70's . . . the 1870's." Do you guys get cable, because there's this show called Big Love, I think you'd like it, their wives are total hotties – how about peeling away a layer or two and let the other half see how y'all live. Enquiring minds want to know. Who knows a little makeup and a suntan, might not hurt the recruiting effort.

Now, on the darker side of the news, I have a partner who lives in Kanab Utah, which is only a few miles from the twin-cities, and his opinion is a lot different from mine. I'm just a naïve numbnut on the subject as far as he's concerned. The news stories you hear of sexual abuse is only the tip of the iceberg to hear him tell it. He claims that they don't get all that money from farming and construction. I guess it's pretty commonly held belief that the younger women are farmed out as sex-slaves ( a contention, backed up in a novel written by a local lawyer – who claims that their chief customers are Russians, who pay a kings ransom to bed down with a 13 year old. Lordy.) I know this sounds like pure conspiracy theory, but this guy made a pretty convincing case. The residents of Kanab also speak of what they call sightings.

Glimpses of what they refer to as the "hidelings." Obviously the P's are splashing around in a pretty tiny gene pool and as a result they have a high rate of bizarre birth defects. Supposedly those most profoundly afflicted are hidden away in basements and occasionally drown like puppies at birth. Even the ones that aren't hidden are pretty freaky looking, the most common affliction seems to be eyes that are way too close together. Coconut heads they're called and it is said that their eyes are so close together that if they open them wide enough they touch. I've heard plenty of these stories. One-eyed wonders. Tails, three nipples, fingers where teeth should be, teeth inside their ears. Brussel sprouts instead of testicles, testicles instead of ears. "You whisper in their ear and their hat flies off." Most of this is rural legend, but for every exaggerated claim there is a kernel of truth.

I guess the thing that still baffles me is where they get all these women? Obviously a number of them come up through the farm system (ain't that right Mr. Jeffs?) But if there's 9 wives for every man, it stands to reason that they're doing a bit of outside recruiting. Maybe I just haven't been looking closely enough at the help wanted ads.

"Quiet, God-fearing man seeks open-minded gal who wishes to share the burden of putting up with a husband with other open-minded gals. Must be a team-player, willing to relocate, no experience necessary, uniform provided."