So we all know how I feel about Lisa Scottoline.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that Benito Mario is facebook friends with “her.”  I put that in quotes because the woman obviously doesn’t check her facebook account and that sad, sad job goes to some low-level assistant at her agent’ agency or publisher.  I REALLY hope that individual does not have student loans because they are about to lose their job, like the Biglaw associate who gets put in charge of exhibits.

Benito says he’s facebook friends with her because she accepted his invitation.  Yes Benito knows its just a sham to sell books that make Nancy Drew look like war and peace, but he has almost zero friends and he takes what he can get…just like people who travel in the middle lane.  Big-nosed hack authors who travel in the middle lane.  Well, when you’re in debtor’s prison, there is no middle lane.

Lisa Scottoline, in her column with 100x the readership of this one talks about how great the middle lane is – basically plenty of safety and no commitment.  Throw in some snarky comments about her ex-husbands, a tribute to her own sainthood and something about a dog and you’ve got it.

We don’t have that luxury.  The middle lane is closed off to us.  The middle lane is where you go to a good school, graduate, get a good job and as you move up the ladder you get married, buy a house, have children and hope that somewhere in there either your job, your family or a combination of the two give your life a sense of meaning and fulfillment.

We either hit the ground running, sacrifice everything AND get lucky and we’re in the fast lane making more money than we’re worth, existing only so the lemming herders have something to point to in order to keep the death march to the cliff going.  If we’re not in the fast lane we’re in the slow lane…with a lot of tolls and no e-z pass.

Scottoline takes great pride in the fact that truckers like to listen to her books on tape while driving.   No wonder truckers are so angry.  But this post is more than just an opportunity to, as Alpha Man would say “hate on” Lisa Scottoline.  It’s an observation that the middle class as we know it is being replaced by a new caste system  with a lottery for upward mobility – and the odds of winning get worse every single year.