Remnents. Carpet scraps. Fabric samples. Little strips of cloth. The country is chock-full of excess textiles, clogging up the landfills, and bringing a nation to its knees. What can be done?
In a truly enlightened moment all of the free barrels from all of the yarn stores of the country are shipped to all its prisons, where the inmates are taught to make simple hook rugs out of them. Soon the jails are overloaded with classic chunky oval spirals of brightly colored cloth. And they're all dusty, as throw rugs tend to get. So the prisoners are allowed outside the walls to beat their rugs with clubs, the better to release all of the prisons dust safely.
Not surprisingly, in a cloud of dust, invective, and swinging carpet beaters, all of the felons disappear, leaving behind concussed and coughing prison guards, but taking their cheap throw rugs with them.
Its a national nightmare. Where are all of our prisoners? How can we find them? A national Dragnet is formed, and yarn stores are staked out across the country. The nation waits, on pins and needles.
A small boy is watching T.V. with his Mom. He asks his mother how all the bad guys will get money to buy more yarn. His mother, distracted, watching CNN in full crisis mode, says that the bad guys will simply rob the stores, but the good prisoners will have to earn the money somehow. So the little boy slides off the couch and goes over to the family computer. Then he calls the F.B.I. and asks the nice agents to quit watching the yarn stores and instead log on to Ebay, where 1 million hook rugs have recently been offered.
Armed with the addresses provided from the website, a million police officers, sheriffs and F.B.I. agents are knocking down doors, ready to re-incarcerate the prisoners. All of this on live T.V. of course. What they find however are mild-mannered, clean living men and women, happily crocheting, knitting, and hooking away. The nation is now outraged again, this time that the governments stormtroopers would bother such passive and peaceful citizens.
So all of the nations prisoners are paroled, given probation, and also given all of the nations scrap textiles. Soon hook rugs are a leading export, and houses all over the world are graced with sturdy, brightly colored ovals of skulls, gang signs, and marijuana leaves.
12/24/05
Back to the land of Dreams.