Dave Matthews, Lite Beer and Wonder Bread

This is a story of a couple that straddled the apex of the statistical mean. They were average, encompassing the mode, median and all measures of central tendency. It is a story of Jen and her husband. His name escapes me because he lacked any definition that would lead my brain to link him and an associated moniker.

I remember that I knew them but I don't remember anything about them or what they looked like. I just remember that they existed. They befriended me during a transient career stop. We'd get a few beers now and then and bullshit about boring stuff, like the pictures in their cubicles or "We carry an intermediate amount of liability car insurance", etc.. Still, they didn't call me an idiot within the first few sessions so it was a major social integration for me.

However, after about the third or forth time we did something together I realized how boring they were. Their boringness came from their intense drive to endeavor in all that was easy, non-threatening and acceptable. Thinking was a challenge and they would constantly employ a similar panel of boring white middle-class friends to make decisions for them. Any hint of deviance from the center of the road was met with resistance. They sought, found, and reveled in Freedom from Choice.

They were huge Jimmy Buffet fans, drank exclusively Miller Lite, drove a sensible beige car, and dressed like they fell out of a Dockers commercial. They didn't like things even the slightest bit spicy, food choices were predominantly beige. They were in the wake of the Joneses, floating helplessly in the slipstream of obsolescence just behind the cutting edge of societal evolution.

They were the embodyment of Peoria, IL, the statistical center, a telemarker's dream. They took umbrage to any suggestion of variance from simple thoughts and simple solutions. Hence, their politics were slightly to the right of center, they liked George W. Bush, but not for his ideas, rather for his simple, doofus approach. They nuzzled into the thin bosom of his non-challenging, comfy dullness that failed to challenge.

Joel! His name was Joel. A very median name.

They consistently picked the middle. Their tortured existence led them to buy mid-grade gasoline and they never ordered the small or large size. They had no opinions, and all potential decisions had to be first validated by a consensus of ordinarians, like, "Do you guys like Icehouse?" or "Should we buy the Nora Jones CD?". Middle. The only thing unusual about them was their extreme tendency to stick to the norm with amazing precision.

It became annoying. I'm exactly the opposite, out of the box, the anti-norm. It was only a few weeks of endless plays of Dave Matthews over cheese-sauce-covered nachos and Miller Lite that our oil-and-water friendship started to erode. I questioned why they felt "Blew out a flip-flop, stepped on a pop top" was the best lyric ever penned. They started to criticize my wild tendencies, my use of rational thought, my decision to not accept the status quo, my atypical career choice and nails-on-the-chalkboard lifestyle.

It ended when I gave them the finger, appropriately, the middle one.