January 20, 2068
“…….so when it came to the collective attention of the well to do that a scarcity and expense void had been created by the reversal of the wood preservation act of 2025 making all wood cheap and plentiful, including hardwood, Brazilian wood, and exotic woods of all kinds, a silent referendum of sorts was held and a new signifier emerged as the sin qua non of the good life.
And so the great faux fiber race was on across most of the United States and Texas. (Which at about this time had finally succeeded in breaking away from the union and forming its own country but only after the US government held a national referendum on the matter and it became clear that the rest of the country thought we would all be better off if Texas did go its own way.) Everyone wanted to cover their floors with expensive hard to obtain, highly regulated, heavily inspected shag carpet. It was one of the first items mentioned in any sales listing right after the number of working shade panels- still a necessity pre-ozone repair technology.
But soon covering your floors with shag wasn’t enough. Because even if shag owners covered their front lawns with it, and many did, there was only so much space underfoot; so the length of the fibers became the real point of pride since the longer the shag, the higher the maintenance, (shag stained easily and had to be carefully cleaned, much like the old marble and granite countertops around the turn of the millennium) and the greater the status it conferred. It even came into vogue to complain about how long it took you or your mini-drone, the successor to the Roomba carpet cleaner, to get your shag ready for inspections, or to report to others how many times you tripped and stumbled due to the extraordinary length of your carpet fibers.
The very wealthy even held treasure hunts. In preparation for these hunts, the hostess hid gifts and prizes in the shag for guests to finds. There is even one well-documented incident that occurred in 2041 concerning a three-year-old and a small dog lost in the shag for several days during one of these parties. It took three men over 24 hours to find them. After that incident, it became standard to hire “searchers” to stand by at these parties just in case.
One might think all this conspicuous consumption of shag would create a backlash, especially among those who could afford only very short fibers, and for a while there was. For a while it was considered clever to call houses covered inside and out with long shag- Shag-atosis Huts, based on the stewy chemical scent they gave off due to so many man-made fibers in one spot, but that was before shag manufacturers and the banking and lending associations that backed them fought back. ‘Hell!’ Their argument went. ‘The stuff is already restricted; soon they won’t be making anymore!! It’s the greatest investment ever! How can you lose? Stretch and buy as much as you can!’
In addition to appealing to people’s innate greed and fear of being left behind financially, the promoters of shag funded studies that eventually made their way into peer-reviewed journals claiming babies who crawled through long shag tended to get higher pre-nursery school admission test scores. This caused such a clamor for long fiber carpet the national association of pre-nursery schools put forth a statement assuring parents that babies coming from homes with shag over 18” long would have their admission exams handicapped accordingly.
But what finally tipped the public perception in favor of a substance that was once considered to bear at least partial blame for earth’s pollution was the notion that the inhabitants of the earth would one day have a re-do. The United States was making attempts to colonize Mars. Someday, maybe someday soon, the conventional wisdom had it, everyone would have a brand new planet at their disposal, (if you’ll pardon the turn of phrase) and get a complete do-over. Mars would soon be ready to colonize, and of course, long fiber shag would be welcome and in short supply on what looked to be a very rough and rocky planet.
Of course, no one really thought that someday would come any day soon.
But it did. Just as the price of long hair shag and the pride and glory attached to owning it, especially in avocado, harvest gold, and burnt orange, reached a peak no one had ever anticipated, the colonial magistrate of the first self-sustaining colony on Mars declared his colony open for business. The colonial magistrate stated at the time that he knew it was time to enact a Homestead Act when he realized he’d gotten requests for business permits from a Subway franchisee, Verizon Wireless, and a mixed-use urban developer all in the same week.
Of course, we all know what happened next. Once settlers were encouraged to buy anything and everything made from a chemical process and these things were cheap and available to everyone, no one wanted anything to do with any of them - including shag. The shag carpet bubble burst.
But this time the governments of the old world and our new world responded differently. Instead of simply waiting for the world economies to right themselves and chalking the whole experience up to yet another economic bubble in a long history of bubbles, they decided to do something. Governments passed the international (now intergalactic) No Burst Laws of 2053. From that point forward the price and purchase of any item that might inspire hoarding or excessive purchasing behavior because of its scarcity, cachet, or the fear of future higher prices, would be strictly regulated. No more bubbles. These laws also had the added benefit of making it very difficult for consumers to signal to others their superior economic standing based on the possessions they owned.
On to homework: As we know calorie intake was of great concern to a certain class of people living on earth before we were able to neutralize the effects of calories. Food was cheap and plentiful in many places, and because it tasted good and was readily available it was very easy to get fat; a state of being that came to be associated with sloth, poverty, and ignorance especially among inhabitants of well-to-do metropolitan cites in highly industrialized nations. Whereas being slim, even skinny, came to signify something all together the opposite. There was even a phrase that summed up this mindset: “You can never be too thin or too rich.”
Now we live on Mars where the calories neutralization process is no longer available and where food is not only scarce and hard to find but very expensive, especially highly caloric foods such as ice cream, chips, and chocolate. Your assignment in at least 300 words: What effect, if any, will this societal change have on the inhabitants of Mars?
One last thing, you students in the Sudan chairs- tell your carriers to be careful going through the doors. Although I’m very impressed that some of you have to be carried around in Sudan chairs because of your size, busting the framework around my classroom doors will NOT impress me. Class dismissed.”
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