In my world, I
remember when ‘shag’ really was a dirty word. Those were the days when the shag
was the carpet, not what was done naked on top of it. Do you remember shag
carpets? They came in such wonderful, vibrant colors. In my first home, there
was a green shag carpet in the living room and dining room. One bedroom had a
golden shag carpet, the other had a bright green one. The crowning touch,
though, was the brilliant purple carpet in the master bedroom. The first time I
cleaned it, the sun was shining through the window and created sort of a purple
ectoplasmic glow down the hallway.
For those of you
blessedly too young to recall shag carpets, they were the ones with the very
long fibers, so long that the carpets came with their own rake. Yes, you vacuumed,
then you raked, and still they would not come clean. It was the perfect melding of outdoors indoors, for those who liked to rake but didn't want to do it in the garden, with the added bonus of having the ability to harbor and grow even more scary organisms than those found in mere dirt. The proof of that was when
that glorious day arrived when you were finally able to pull the damned thing
up and replace it with hardwood, and you could see the years of crap and
corruption that still hid in the depth of weave. Trust me when I say it was not
for the faint of stomach.
But, to be fair, the
shag carpet was a sign of success, a societal fashion high-water mark. Not
everyone had shag. It went wonderfully with the lava lamps, the avocado colored
kitchen appliances (or poppy red, or harvest gold – take your pick) that came with avocado colored dishes, mix master, crock pot, silverware, placemats and chairs, and the
funky gold-flecked mirror tiles on the wall. It was... shaggy, and we loved the devil-may-care freedom of shaggy, so we added that effect to a lot of things, arguably none of them improved for the hairy texture. Yes, we were changing how our
world looked. It was different... not necessarily better, but different.
We had embraced a ‘free
and easy’ lifestyle, one that shucked the drab greys and earthtones from our
lives. We were living in a brighter time, one where bright was to be embraced
in our clothes, our sunglasses, our cars, our television programs and our
homes. We were creating metaphoric rainbows after a long period of conformity
and nickel-counting, and everyone was going to know it. Our linoleum was not
two-toned checkers. It was a mash-up of blues, greens, yellows, pinks, all
spattered together like a Picasso crime scene.
Color permeated
everything. Nothing was, sadly, too daring. You realize that now when you walk
into one of these homes, a remnant of years gone by, and you need to use the
washroom. Purple toilets, pink sinks, yellow tubs... no, when it came to adding
color, even bathroom porcelain was not sacred. As BJ Honeycut once said, ‘it
was like a Tintoretto in barf.’
We had ‘modern’
furniture – for lack of a better way of describing it. We had giant bright
artwork on the walls, swag lights hanging from the ceiling, throwing funky
shadows everywhere, and the craziest, strangest lights you could ever imagine,
all set off with flags in the windows and beaded curtains in the doorway. We brought plants inside. No longer were we stuck with just a geranium on the porch. Like with the shag carpets, we brought the outdoors in. We were daring. We
worked hard to create these new treasures, embracing the knowledge that fashion
could make a statement and still be affordable... or so we hoped. In some ways,
you have to give some consideration to the rise in popularity of having a small
potted cannabis in the corner, and wonder if perhaps it wasn’t to blame for a
lot of what we gushed over at the time.
To be fair, it was a
time when, finally, we realized the shackles were off. We started to want
themes – mushroom (yes, in more way than one, I think) or the cows! Remember
the cows? The cow coffee creamer where you grabbed the tail to tip it and pour
the cream out of the cow’s mouth? There were cow flower pots, cow canisters,
cow aprons hanging on the door hook, cow oven mitts. We did that with the
mushrooms as well, and the gnomes and owls. We were wild and crazy. We were almost out of control. We put plastic flamingos in the yard – every
yard had a pair of pink flamingos on the way to the front door.
Of course, shag
carpets weren’t the worst idea for floor coverings. That title probably goes to
the notion of putting indoor/outdoor carpets on EVERY floor. Yes, I do mean the
kitchen and the bathroom floor. They were a delight when there was something
spilled in the kitchen. You never got it clean. As for the bathroom? I swear to
God, they could make the toilet bowl the size of Texas and men would still miss
it, especially with those last few drips. They would collect at the base of the
toilet, absorbed in the fiber of the carpet. Yeah, you could steam clean them,
but you didn’t do that every day. At that time, it was a pretty monumental
event to clean carpets, one reserved for two times a year.
Relegated to the dark,
not so gentle pages of history books, shag carpets are a thing of the past, and
really none too soon. Shags were really not that much better when they became a
hairstyle – yeah, we wore shags there too. I suppose, in a way, the curtains
really did match the carpeting. In truth, the shagging should stay on the
boulevard... or in Mike Meyer’s movies, and the people of the world should be
spared from them, in all forms, as fashion statements.
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