The League of Inconspicuous Gentlefolk

n the deepest depths of a perfectly average town—sandwiched between a bakery that sold suspiciously dry éclairs and a barber who still insisted on bowl cuts—lived a secret society so secret, so absurdly underwhelming, that no one would ever suspect its existence.

They were The League of Inconspicuous Gentlefolk.

Their motto? “Blend In, Stand Down, Avoid Eye Contact.”

Membership required an unwavering commitment to never doing anything impressive in public, always wearing beige or gray, and perfecting the art of walking into a room and being immediately forgotten.

Their headquarters was tucked behind a stationery shop that technically hadn’t sold a pen since 1996. The password to enter? A deep sigh followed by the phrase, “I suppose this will do.”

The current Grand Master of the League was Mr. Dennis Bumblethorpe, a man so unremarkable that even his reflection occasionally lost track of him. He had been unanimously voted in as leader because no one else remembered being nominated.

Each Thursday, the League met under the humming fluorescent lights of their beige backroom. Their discussions covered vital, soul-sapping topics such as:

How to politely disappear from conversations.

Ways to walk past security cameras without triggering facial recognition.

Updates on the “National Sock Mismatch Database” (a fabricated project to maintain the illusion of productivity).

But one Thursday, something utterly unsettling occurred.

Someone knocked.

Politely.

Firmly.

With purpose.

The League froze.

“Are we expecting someone?” asked Agnes Turtledove, the record-keeper and resident expert in excuses to avoid parties.

“No,” Dennis replied, paling. “Unless… we’ve been found out.”

The knock came again.

Dennis, clutching his mug of lukewarm chamomile, opened the door.

In stepped a man in a neon orange tracksuit, holding a clipboard and chewing bubblegum with the aggressive confidence of someone who used a leaf blower before 8 a.m.

“Howdy,” the man said. “Name’s Blaze. Department of Obscure Societies. We’ve got an audit scheduled. Just routine.”

The League collectively gasped. Or rather, exhaled quietly in alarm.

Blaze flipped through his clipboard. “Let’s see… League of Inconspicuous Gentlefolk. Founded 1842. Primary objective: to go entirely unnoticed by the general public and/or squirrels. Secondary objective: to monitor the rise of suspiciously enthusiastic yoga studios.”

Agnes nodded gravely.

Blaze frowned. “Says here you haven’t participated in any official unnoticed activities in over six months.”

Dennis cleared his throat. “We… prefer a passive approach.”

“Unacceptable,” Blaze snapped. “If you’re not doing anything in secret, are you even a secret society?”

And just like that, the League was given 30 days to prove their value or be officially deregistered.

Post-Audit Panic

Though Blaze eventually left with a noncommittal grunt and a peppermint from the tea tray, his visit left a fog of unease clinging to the League like static on a cardigan.

Dennis began double-blinking before entering rooms.

Agnes started triple-checking her non-alarmingly organized calendar.

And Cedric Penneweather—who had once nearly drawn attention by wearing socks with a faint pattern—developed a nervous twitch whenever someone said the word “noticeable.”

An emergency meeting was called under the pretense of discussing envelope glue varieties.

“We need to elevate our dullness,” Dennis declared solemnly, sipping his chamomile. “We’ve been too exciting lately. Someone reported a chuckle at our last meeting.”

“That was a sneeze,” Cedric mumbled.

“Exactly.”

So they launched Operation: Even Less.

Goals included:

Replacing all tea with room-temperature water.

Removing chairs that made even slightly whimsical creaks.

Banning all storytelling longer than twelve words.

It worked. Spectacularly.

They became so aggressively average that several members began to forget the purpose of their own sentences halfway through.

But while the League was perfecting the art of emotional beige, storm clouds of cheer gathered across town...

The Rise of the Peppy People

News spread of a rival group: loud, coordinated, disturbingly chipper.

The Upbeatians.

They wore matching tracksuits.

They danced in public.

They complimented strangers and hosted brunch. Brunch!

The League was horrified.

Agnes clutched her tepid water. “We must act. Their enthusiasm could unbalance the very fabric of forgettability.”

Dennis sighed. “Deploy Phase Beige.”

Phase Beige was their finest hour in quiet sabotage:

Slipping mildly uninspiring pamphlets into Upbeatian mailboxes.

Replacing their coffee with decaf barley brew.

Loudly misquoting motivational quotes near their rallies:

“Be the change you wish someone else would make eventually.”

But the Upbeatians remained unshaken. Their smiles only grew wider. Their jazz hands, bolder.

Dennis slumped during the next meeting. “They’re immune.”

Agnes leaned forward, a rare glint in her eye. “Maybe we’re fighting this wrong. Maybe we don’t beat them. Maybe… we bore them into submission.”

The Demonstration of Extreme Meh

And so, the League staged a rally—quietly, reluctantly, and with beige permission slips filed in triplicate.

It was called the Demonstration of Extreme Meh.

They stood in the town park holding hand-lettered placards that read:

“Satisfactory.”

“Could Be Worse.”

“Seen Better. Don’t Care.”

They didn’t chant. They didn’t move. Some didn’t even stand—they leaned.

Within minutes, several Upbeatians stopped dancing. One of them blinked rapidly. Another sat down. Someone else, in a moment of existential clarity, asked aloud, “Has brunch... always been this empty?”

Victory.

As the Upbeatians slowly dispersed—some still trying to smile, others checking their reflections for joy loss—a familiar neon tracksuit reappeared at the edge of the park.

Blaze.

He squinted at the silent signs. At the catatonic posture. At Cedric slowly eating a cracker with no cheese.

He jotted something on his clipboard.

“Now that’s regulation-level dullness,” he muttered.

Then he left.

No handshakes. No words. Just the soft sound of gum chewing and regulation-approved indifference.

Return to Normalcy

With the crisis averted, the League resumed its quietly glorious mediocrity.

Membership grew—quietly, of course—as young people, overwhelmed by the chaos of the world, discovered the oddly comforting draw of not mattering. A new recruit said, “I want to be seen less.” Agnes whispered, “That’s the spirit.”

Dennis, ever vigilant, updated the League’s charter:

“Let it be known: Our strength is in our subtlety. Our power is our forgettability. And our greatest triumph… is being entirely overlooked.”

They all nodded.

Then they adjourned.

Without saying goodbye.

As always.

Final Note

The League remains.

Not flamboyant. Not brave. But stalwart in their commitment to mildness. Whispering quietly into the wind. Guarding the borders of beige.

In a world shouting for attention, they are the blessed blur. The shrug in human form. The people who make elevator silence even quieter.

They are The League of Inconspicuous Gentlefolk.

And no one remembers their name.

Exactly as planned.