7 dollars a gallon: called to the carpet

The day gas hit 7 dollars a gallon, there was magic in the air. Specifically, in carpet form. All my friends and I made the change over gladly, except for my foolish pal who tried his hand at a bio-diesel vehicle. They found him face down in a sour mash, more dead than alive. His family cried. A lone piper played a Scottish dirge. The world moved on, the incident was buried in the sands of time. Or was it kitty litter?

My carpet and me, we had a good time. I'd sail over the city at midnight, dropping rotten eggs from great heights onto the scant few SUVs parked in dilapidated driveways. "Take that you dinosaur-fueled sources of evil." It hadn't taken a comet to wipe them out, merely a magical 7 dollar benchmark that broke the stressed out feather across the camel-back of humanity.

Long after humans left earth, some new race would touch down their spacecrafts here and dig up SUV bones and wonder what it all meant. "Such ugly transporter carcasses, and all with over-sized cup holders and needlessly powerful speaker systems. They must have been a thirsty deaf race."

I had the most fun on weekends surfing through the clouds. Light, white, and fluffy. You wanted to avoid the dark clouds. Unlike Dark Chocolate, the dark clouds left a bad taste in your mouth, in fact it was sulfur and brimstone, especially when you suffered a direct lightening hit. Gray clouds made excellent carpet washers.

At work we all rolled up our carpets and tucked them snugly and conveniently under our desks. There was no need for parking garages so all they turned into skateboard parks.

There were no need for parking meters either, or garages, or driveways. People just carried their carpets wherever they went. Some guy made a mint inventing the "carpet-a-pak," a backpack like container that not only helped you carry your carpet around but also made you look damned good doing it. And the "carpet-a-chute" did well too. Don't fly without one, you'd hate to be an idiot and fall to your death. The carpeto-ankleo-lineo was also key. Sure the names sucked, but the products were quite robust.

At 6 bucks a gallon people had still just put up with how things were. When it hit $6.66 a few satanists and televangelists complained or rejoiced (I forget who complained and who rejoiced, it's hard to tell those people apart), but American Idol was still enough of a distraction to make people bend over and say "do me, gas daddy, shove your rock hard nozzle where the sun don't shine, thank you sir can I have another gallon of your tough love?"

By the time it hit 7, something had to give, but would people finally wake up to the magic around them and embrace it?. When Apple announced their iTunes plug in adapter/speaker system for the Magic Carpet that very morning (the iCarpet), it pushed America over the Edge.

Accessories had once again paved the way for the acceptance of innovation.