In The Squeeze Play

Blessed wonderful sleep finally deserted me after a long snooze, a welcome respite from the flop and roll binge I’ve been on the last three nights. I was also gifted with the mandatory workplace dream, dickhead boss and all. I was assigned to work with a graceful and beautiful woman, so naturally I fell for her all the way down to my toenails. She thought I was one of the power tools. I managed to perform what were literally miraculous feats of labor in order to impress her, but she shined me on with a yawn. It was the kind of dream I wake up from to find I’ve gnawed a corner off my pillow. There was no dream of eating; I was grinding my teeth in frustration, and the pillow got in the way. That’s not the part that bothers me…I can’t find the piece I chewed off.
Just kidding, folks. Getting dramatic early on this Monday Morning, a significant day of the week having all the built-in drama I can stand. Today, Middle America will once again confront the Big Lie, and miss it completely. It happens bright and ugly every Monday morning when the main work force creeps back in to the factory, loathing every second of it with every fiber of their being. I have often wondered at the ratio of workers who enjoy their jobs (I’ve heard of this phenomenon, but never witnessed it), to those who go to work only for an insufficient paycheck and the weekend. I suspect the statistics fluctuate with the times, as does everything else---except for extreme wealth and extreme poverty.
Those who were money-wallowing rich, along with those who were rat-eating poor, lived on pretty much without change through all of it; there were both classes in existence during any period in history you care to name. The wealthy will live in golden splendor while the poor remain at the bottom of the heap, where they quickly become superbly trained in the art of minimalist survival---or they die. The ones taking the everlasting beating throughout all of history are those caught in the middle---the decent, educated citizens who work so earnestly to gain upward mobility.
Some Middle Americans want to be rich so badly they’ll do almost anything to achieve their dream, and these poor souls are used accordingly by the very rich; they are the ones appointed to perform the treacheries that would otherwise soil manicured hands. Some caught in the middle do this without a clue, but others do it without a second thought. Anything that can be done to further the pursuit of financial success will be done, no matter who gets hurt. The wealthy also have a real need to fear each other---infamous lifetime criminal Willy Sutton once exclaimed, “I rob banks ‘cause that’s where the money is.” Not much to gain in robbing the poor or the middle class, is there? Wealth will come that way, but far too slowly to stem today’s accepted form of ostentatious greed. We want to be rich yesterday!