In 1962 scientists invented a new shade of yellow that they called Curdletown. It was a bit like custard, only more so.
Anyway, the CEO of Tinkey Tonk Widgets realised that his Curdletown widgets performed 4% better on the marketplace and soon he’d rebranded the company Widgetown and everything he sold was like custard, only more so.Other companies soon caught on and it wasn’t long before everything was Curdletown. Curdletown socks, Curdletown sausages, Curdletown speedboats. They couldn’t get enough of that 4% bump.
Scientists, in 1972, realised that while the 4% increase in sales was across the board it came with a 1% decrease in happiness.
“Well,” they thought, “1% is less than 4%, so we guess that’s fine.”
The report was published in a much respected scientific journal, the newly renamed Curdletown Scientific Review. The one with the custard coloured cover.
In 1983 Mrs Evelyn Portabello did a wide ranging statistical study and found that the 1% decrease in unhappiness had edged up to 2% and, due to market saturation, the 4% sales bump was barely a blip now. She wrote an influential book called “Waiting for Cuddle Time.” Where she took companies to task over their overuse of the new colour.
Her publishers gave it a custard coloured cover and, while this decision had been out of her hands, she was widely ridiculed and so decided to become a yak farmer in Mongolia, where she lived a very happy life free from the constraints of statistical analysis.
In 1998 a newly resurgent anti-capitalist movement launched a campaign of sit ins, strikes and art installations aimed at taking down the cloying ubiquity of Curdletown products.
Moderates in the movement suggested they march under a yellow flag but hard liners demanded that they use the least popular colours as a point of principle.
After years of infighting the transparent flaggers emerged as the main faction but the world had moved on.
By 2032 Jolenne Pinkerbawm had the idea of painting every lifeboat, flood defense and water purification tablet Curdletown. But by this time it was too late and only the yak farmers of Mongolia (both inner and outer) had found peace with the new world, especially Evelyn Portabello who had discovered a deep sexual awakening with her two young lovers. She didn’t give Curdletown a second thought as she drowned in the most powerful and plentiful orgasms pretty much anyone had ever known.
And that, my friends, counts as a happy ending.