MEDIOCRE FRED

     Mediocre Fred is a former person. But after having been bombarded with 3000 commercials a day and having accepted 21 credit cards, Fred has morphed into nothing more than a mere consumer. As such he has lost his way. No longer in touch with his inner voice, Fred has surrendered his soul somewhere in the endless aisles of mediocrity in that vast wasteland of homogenization better known as the American Mall.

     As a consumer, Mediocre Fred has become an esteemed member of that form of life known as a “wanter” and is easy prey for the insidious conspiracy that joins Corporate America, the banking system and the winking and nodding politicians on the take. Fred stands no chance against this rock-solid collusion that is carefully designed to separate the Middle Class from its wealth. As Fred and his kind buy more and more short term junk, and, in the doing, fall ever deeper in debt, the great transfer of wealth from the many to the few seals their fate and their Country’s standing in the world community.

     When I last looked upon Fred he was in the hospital on life supports. A team of eminent physicians, after having subjected their defeated patient to a brutal battery of tests, came to the unanimous diagnosis that Fred was suffering from both an acute and a chronic overdose of mediocrity. Unfortunately, the disease is always fatal to those members of the human race predisposed to something called sensitivity. It attacks the spirit first, then moves on to the mind and finally ravages the now empty package.

     When the initial crisis passed, and since there was nothing that modern medicine could do for Fred, he was released from the hospital and sent home to shop while he still could. He would likely go on living until his credit ran out. At that point Fred would undoubtedly lose his will to stay in the game.

     Several months later I called his wife, Martha, who was no slouch herself when it came to the utilization of plastic. I inquired about the condition of her fallen spouse. “Mediocre,” was her bland reply.

January 27, 2010