Well, it's the holiday season in Lawrence, Kansas, and this means one thing in particular to those of us who are natives—there is a massive influx of traffic from Johnson County. Here we are, a town full of artisans and students, hippies and thinking people, and assorted others who make their living pretending to be all of the above. We are the Berkeley of the Midwest. We are the Village people (heh heh). And we have the kind of cultured ambience that summons affluent characters from the suburbs of Kansas City.

That cloud of dust you see on the horizon is a caravan of Hummers from Johnson County making its way to Lawrence for some Christmas shopping. They are everywhere: the orthodontists in their round spectacles, the wives in their interchangeable black leather coats. They have descended on the town like locusts, devouring every living thing and clogging up the lines in your favorite coffee shop. ("Oooh, look Todd," they are tittering, "they have a drink called the 'Sex Bomb!'") Yes, we tell them. It's named after the Tom Jones song. "My gosh—a drink with sex in the name. How hip! I'll get one." The barista with the punk hair smiles tolerantly and fetches the drink. He knows they are eager to please, and they understand the mechanism of the tip jar.

Thankfully, the less adventurous ones don't bother with your favorite coffee shop at all. Without hesitation, they make their way to the illuminated Starbucks sign, the holy grail of the tragically suburban. The round, recognizable sign is glowing like a beacon, and the Johnson County elite shuffle toward it like cattle, like the poor livestock-ized people in The Time Machine when the air raid siren called them to become Morlock fodder. Would I save them if I knew how? Of course. But they are too deeply entrenched in their American fever-dreams. Poor souls.

They pay our bills, in large part. They visit our galleries and shop at our novelty stores. A trip to the Gap is de riguer, even though they could just as easily visit a Gap store back in Johnson County. They drive the wrong way on one-way streets like Tennessee and Kentucky, and are too busy conversing on their cell phones to notice until they come to a screeching halt in front of a chartreuse VW microbus with peace signs painted all over it. Only then—grill to grill with a native—do they realize their error. At this point they give an embarrassed wave and drive in reverse all the way to the next intersection, where nearly a dozen more accidents are just waiting to happen.

Yet we are patient with them. We give them directions when they ask, and recommend restaurants "with a local flavor." They are our burden to bear, and for the most part, we do so with grace.

But we do bitch about them an awful lot.