Having it all, wanting to do it over

It's fitting that at this moment in our history the TV show about having it all ended instead with a mulligan.

I'm speaking of "The Bachelor." ABC's reality show was supposed to be about Kirkland single dad Jason Mesnick's quest for a lifelong love. Instead it climaxed with him begging for a clean slate.

First he said "I do." Then: "I don't." Then: "I want a do-over."

He sounded like a bank executive testifying to Congress. It's not you, it's me. Now how about that bailout?

We're all about the do-over these days. Mesnick's arrangements were emotional, while the country's are financial. But really, what's the difference between walking away from an engagement and walking away from a mortgage?

You either stay and fight for it, as the jilted Melissa taunted. Or you flee.

Now people are teeing off on Mesnick, calling him finicky, a cad, more neurotic than Woody Allen. Yet I'd say he captures the American psyche today as well as anyone. Mostly in his naked longing for a second chance.

The other day I dropped by do-over central — bankruptcy court in downtown Seattle. Where record numbers are going Bachelor in search of a fresh start.

Local bankruptcy filings were up 60 percent this January over a year ago. In February they were up another 30 percent over January. Most of them are the Chapter 7 kind, in which you are in a financial mess and you give up and walk away.

I went to a meeting of the creditors, in which debtors stand and cop a plea to the court. People lined the hallway outside.

I met a Seattle waitress who has $5.08 in the bank, yet owes $33,000 on eight maxed-out credit cards. She declared nothing much of value, except a cat (worth $20, according to her petition to the court).

"I realized I would never dig out of this," she said. "I don't want to be here, but I need the fresh start."

I met an unemployed Seattle man who owns nothing but a salvaged motorcycle, $100 worth of clothing and a dog (monetary value, he reported, of $0). He owes $70,000, mostly in back credit-card and medical bills.

"Sure I need a clean slate," he said, when I prompted him. "I'm not proud of this, but I'll take it. If they're giving bailouts to Wall Street ... "

There was a Boeing office administrator who owes $56,000 in student loans and $37,000 in bounced checks and credit-card bills. She'd gone bankrupt before, she told the court. So she's technically asking not for her second chance, but her third.

I'm not printing their names, even though bankruptcy records are public. I'm not out to heap humiliation on anyone. That's why we have reality TV.

I'm also not bashing them for seeking a new beginning. Second chances sometimes stick. My own marriage, now in its 11th year, is the result of a do-over.

It just feels like this is what society is doing right now. In the 90s we did dot-com. In the oughts we did real estate. Now we're pressing reset. We're trapped in debt and we're out to clear it.

Least we're trying. Spend an hour in bankruptcy court and you'll see it never comes out even. Someone pays. Same with the stimulus plan, the bank bailouts, the mortgage write-downs. Somebody takes the pain, like Melissa.

"You are such a bastard," she told Mesnick, when confronted with his mumbling yet unstoppable desire to free himself from the weeds and head off on an illusory open road.

Sound like anyone you know? We're all The Bachelor. We're all bastards these days.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.