Graffiti in Snow at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Invokes the Mayhem of ‘Fight Club’

A phrase that invokes the mayhem in the movie “Fight Club” scrawled in the snow Wednesday night at  was unsettling enough to the lender that the West Des Moines Police Department’s Detective Bureau was alerted.

A private security officer assigned to Wells Fargo, 815 E. Wells Fargo Trail, reported to police that someone had etched the phrase “We are the middle children of history” in the snow in the courtyard of the campus.

The 1999 movie starring Brad Pitt is based on Chuck Palahniuk’s anti-establishment novel about an insomniac’s support group, an underground fight club. Ultimately, a group of people take on the role of “street fighting” and bomb several credit card institutions.

The full quote is:

"We are the middle children of history. We have no great war, no Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won't. And we're slowly learning this fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

The security officer, Jeremy Daniel Beaty, said someone used an employee access card to enter the building after using his foot to scratch the message in the snow at the campus. He said it took the person more than 10 minutes to leave the message.

Beaty told police he and his fellow security officers have fielded numerous telephone calls from employees of Wells Fargo in reference to the quotation. Beaty said that quotation had significant meaning to many people who watched the move “Fight Club.”

Wells Fargo supervisors told Beaty that they were concerned and felt the quote “might have significant meaning towards Wells Fargo,” according to West Des Moines Police Officer Jason Hatcher.

The security officers have yet to confirm the identity of the employee who allegedly scratched the words in the snow, but they do know whose security badge was used to gain access to the building.

In his report, Hatcher said the quotation was very legible, and it appeared that the suspect “took his time” leaving the message.