Day of the Dread

by Pam Woolway

Hippy babies are taking over all the funky cafes. Hippy
babies in their patchouli soaked diapers with their natty
dread dolls. Hippy babies with their Buddha bellies
spilling over their hemp diapers; running between your legs
as you walk across the hard wood floor with caramel rivers
of coffee rolling from palm to elbow; scalding your
fingers. Hippy babies bouncing off table legs in striped pants
and polka-dot shirts with tassels snapping in their wake. One hippy
baby shows up and a commune of organic scone-flinging babies is sure
to follow. As the floor blooms with all-natural crumbs, the hippy
babies divine spirits from soymilk stains on the tables. Hippy
babies swing from the philodendra vines, laughing too loud and smiling at all the seated babies with napkins tucked in their shirts. Hippy babies drooling 100% organic cookie drool down Bob Marley T-shirts that cost a dime at the Hippy Baby Boutique. Hippy babies chanting with bodhi beads and bangles around emaciated wrists, playing ukuleles and drowning out Greg Brown and Natalie Merchant in their ganga-stained hippy-baby voices. We ask them politely, please sit, please clean up after yourself. The hippy babies won’t have any of it. Who are we to infringe upon their freedom?