Average

I shot for average growing up and that’s what I got.  School was no cake walk, but it wasn’t hard or anything.  Learning bored me.  Homework?  What’s that?  I got a lot of D’s on my progress reports, which sent my parents into the stratosphere over and over again.  They threatened me within an inch of my life over and over, and I would rally across the finish line, and hold my hands up in victory for average, for a fucking C.  Below average grades were never acceptable; average grades kept me out of trouble.

Fast forward and rewind through life: I’m an average guy (not above average, but I’ll be damned if I’m below average).  I live in an average house, on an average street, with average neighbors, in an average town.  Our lawns each share an average green hue in the summer, as though we planned it that way.  We have average cars with average car payments.  My family is average with 2.5 kids (actually three whole kids... but statistically still average).  I had an average marriage that morphed into an average divorce.  My income is average and I’m grateful for it.  Middle class suits my magnetic attraction to mediocre.

When I’m out of town I eat at average restaurants.  Chili’s, Red Robin, Outback, Red Lobster, Applebee’s, or Olive Garden.  It’s extraordinary fare for the average man.  It’s like a convention of average people dining together in groups, engaged in all the good habits of the herd, where safety is found in numbers.

I buy coffee at Starbucks with other coffee house wannabes.  I’m not into the fancy coffee based beverages, mainly because it’s a language I can’t understand and never cared to learn.  Give it to me black, safe, sometimes with a little half and half.  Nothing says average like a little half and half.