Ever get the sense that the American dream just ain’t all that dreamy?

You go to school and get good grades so you can get into a good college. You work a little harder to get pretty good grades so you can get a good job. You get a job and it’s something you’re greatful for, but you wouldn’t call it great. You marry someone. They’re better than you deserve, but marriage isn’t all that perfect, either. You get your three bedroom house and your station wagon and sedan and have your 2.2 children, but that’s no bowl of cherries by any means. You do not come home to fresh baked cookies and June Cleaver in her pearls because your spouse also works to pay the utility bills and mortgage. There you are. The American dream. And you look through your white picket fence at 25 more years of putting on a tie for 50 weeks a year and watching a lot of TV nights while the kids romp around your feet and get older and take the car out for their shot at the same game you’ve played. Then, you get to take care of your parents and become the in between generation. You go to church, hoping for some pie in the sky by and by. Your wife goes to the mall to keep the kids in athletic shoes and jeans. Once a year, you take a vacation to visit her parents in BumFuck Egypt. And, you think that someone, somewhere is having fun and “making it”, but it’s not anyone you know. Now, you’re the in between generation at work, too. Old farts frustrating you at the top of the pyramid and young bucks nipping at your heels below. No more grand schemes, just trying to make it through the day. A few things start to slip: it’s the shoulder you hurt at age 17 that now aches after every round of golf. You get contacts or glasses and bifocals slip their way into your life. Your hair thins. Your teeth are capped and crowned and bridged. Your belly gets more and more uncomfortable in more and more of your pants. Screw it, it’s not like Paris Hilton is ever going to ask you to party with her, anyway. You find Jesus, have an affair, go to rehab or you don’t. You vote, but it doesn’t seem to matter. You pay your taxes and your credit card bills and just when it seems like the light can be seen at the end of the tunnel, it’s time to pay for college for the kids and the car breaks down and the 3 bedroom house really needs a new roof and a general overhaul of the kitchen and baths and all at once, you’re behind again.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Don’t let my use of gendered words fool you: it’s equally crappy to be a woman.

You want to scream, but you’re inarticulate and who would you scream at?

Dad dies. Mom dies. The kids have kids and are too busy for your concerns.

Your ticker, your colon and your knees are gone.

Wha’d ya say?

Can you bring that light over here?

Comfortably numb, you go quietly into that last good night.

Monday morning? Again?