You know, looking back at things, I’m pretty glad I decided not to be a scumbag.
Sure, I know what’s running through your mind. You’re thinking I really wanted to be a scumbag but that I tried and failed. After all, to your way of thinking, everybody wants to be a scumbag but only the cream rises to the top. People who wanted to be scumbags and failed, litter the streets like so many homeless wheeling their shopping carts through neighborhoods where they don’t belong.
I was raised to be a scumbag. Went to scumbag prep school and attended a scumbag liberal arts college. The pressure was great to be a scumbag just like everyone else. Money, available sex partners, fine wine, acceptance, these were just a few of the perks that went along with being a card carrying scumbag.
I even tried being a scumbag for a while. Nice job, desk, air conditioning, sweet paycheck, respect of the community. All I had to do for eight hours a day, five days a week, fifty weeks a year, was see to it that everyone followed the rules and assure scumbags stayed on top of the social pyramid. Easy enough. Too easy if you don’t mind my saying.
Don’t exactly remember when I realized there was only one place the road I was on was leading. I was going to be a scumbag for the rest of my life. Easy street. Nice living and a comfortable retirement. The American dream. My job was to keep my eyes where my bosses and friends wanted me to focus, and pay no attention to what was going on to people who weren’t fortunate enough to be scumbags like me.
Must have been four election cycles back. I surveyed the dozen or so candidates vying for the nominations of their respective parties, and I suddenly realized I had no choice other than to vote for another scumbag just like myself. Rank and privilege and basic scumbaggedness was so entrenched in our society that hardly anyone in the upper echelons even realized they were scumbags anymore.
Only choice anyone had was to elect another scumbag. I was one, I knew exactly what being a scumbag meant. It meant being a morally empty, ethically compromised, upper middle class, and above piece of shit who was willing to sell most of society down the river in order to maintain their own piece of the pie and eat it too. When faced with seeing only scumbags like myself running the country, I knew it was time for me to change teams.
So I quit. I quit being a scumbag. I didn’t begrudge my friends and co-workers who remained scumbags. Most of them had families to support and those who didn’t were looking forward to starting scumbag families of their own. I kissed Scumbagville goodbye and never looked back.
It wasn’t easy going cold turkey. Those jobs where my scumbag skills would have stood me in good stead couldn’t accept someone who’d turned their back on the scumbag tribe. Those people who’d never been scumbags couldn’t bring themselves to trust someone who they could only assume was still a scumbag.
It was a classic Catch-22 situation. Once a scumbag, always a scumbag. To most people it was beyond their imagination that such a thing as an ex-scumbag could possibly exist.
Over the years things got a little better. I learned to adapt. I accepted scumbags would probably be controlling things until the day I died. I accepted the inevitable. Scumbags ruled.
And then, along came Bernie.
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