A couple of times in the past few weeks I've heard the Monkees' rendition of the immortal Goffin and King's "Pleasant Valley Sunday". It's got a brilliantly shimmering pop melody, but aside from that it's also a sharp criticism of life in suburbia, an indictment of shallow materialism, a warning about succumbing to a numbing life in Status Symbol Land where you're surrounded by the smell of burning charcoal from all the backyard cookouts.

I'm nearly forty now. I don't consider that I've acquired wisdom for the ages but I have picked up the wisdom of a forty-year-old, for what that's worth. And I was thinking about this today. I once again found myself somehow, after seeing television commercials for miracle cleaning products since 1971, on all fours on my bathroom floor scrubbing with a brush.

When I was younger I agreed with the Monkees wholeheartedly. This was no simple adolescent revolt against one's elders, either. In fact my parents weren't all that interested in Pleasant Valley. They never collected status symbols: No fancy new cars, big beautiful house, expensive TVs. At one point my father drove a tow truck, not professionally, but as his regular commuting vehicle. No, my parents didn't care about appearances. They always looked -- they still do -- to just getting by. Making their way, day by day, climbing over whatever obstacles arose, occasionally grabbing what happiness they could: That was, and is, their way.

So I wasn't rejecting my parents when I turned away from Pleasant Valley. I'd made a definite decision to avoid what I saw as so much worthless and mirthless junk. For me, true value lay in the things I'd pursue all my life: Science and philosophy and art. I spent my time reading Kant, Hume, and Buckminster Fuller. Learning to play chess and studying engineering. Painting.

Well, I managed to avoid Pleasant Valley, yes I did. I don't have a status symbol to my name. I live in the suburbs, sure, but the one I live in is nothing like Gerry Goffin's lyrics, even if he wrote them about a place less than 20 miles from my house.

What I realize now is that a Sunday in Pleasant Valley looks pretty good. All those things I've invested in my whole life thus far -- all the thinking and the understanding -- haven't gotten me anything. I don't need philosophy. I need something to clean my goddamn bathroom floor.