ASK FLUFFIESAREFOOD
Volume 3 Number 1
Happy Friday, Fluffherders! It’s August 24, 2083, and time for another edition of Ask FluffiesAreFood, the advice column that seeks to answer questions of fluffherders and fluffy eaters everywhere! If you have a question, just ask here!
Today’s question comes from PawnShopPrincessInPetaluma, who asks:
Dear FluffiesAreFood,
I run a pawn shop in Petaluma, California, Reunited USA. As usual with pawn shops, we see a lot of stuff that has collected dust in attics for years. Today I had a customer wheel in a device about the size of a deep freezer. On the top was a trap door that would drop a creature inside what looked like a miniature fluffy pen! I’ve seen all sorts of fluffy traps before, but this is the first time I’d seen a trap so elaborate and humane. Can you help shed light on some of the history of these contraptions?
Signed,
PawnShopPrincessInPetaluma
Well PSPIP, based on the photos that you sent, I can tell you that what your customer wheeled in was a Fluffmart branded Fluffhaus humane fluffy trap. Originally manufactured by Flufftek, Fluffhaus was advertised as the ultimate in fluffy trap technology. As you surmised, the Fluffhaus would be buried in a hole about three feet deep, and once deployed, use spaghetti odors to lure stray or feral fluffies into the trap. When the fluffy springs the trap, it slides into a padded miniature pen, complete with kibble, water, a literbox, a robot that will remind the fluffy to keep poopies in the literbox, a miniature television playing recorded FluffTV, a bed, and a set of cameras for remote monitoring. These traps could hold up to four fluffies comfortably, or six fluffies in cramped conditions, for several days, after which time someone would have to come along and rescue them from the trap. The trap retailed for $1100 WUSA, making it perhaps the most expensive life trap ever made for fluffies.
You might be wondering why one would bother with such a complicated and expensive contraption. The answer, of course, is that it was designed to be the least stressful, most comfortable live trap on the market. These features were especially important for fluffy trappers in the 2030s, when ferals were more common and (you guessed it) keeping fluffies for their food was on the rise. By keeping the fluffy’s stress to a minimum, the meat stayed free of lactic acid from stress. The theory went that this led to a higher quality meat when the redomesticated fluffy was eventually harvested. These claims were never proven. Nonetheless, the traps remained popular for upper class fluffherders throughout North America until the last of the megaherds was redomesticated.
These days, Fluffhaus traps are considered collectors items. Since ferals are rare, Fluffhaus pens no longer serve the same purpose as before. However, the design of the Fluffhaus is a precursor to the mobile fluffy pens that we use to transport beloved pets on maglevs and suborbitals, and the pressurized fluffy pens for orbital and lunar meat herds. Even the radiation shielded fluffy pens for the International Mars Mission are direct descendents of the Fluffhaus. In a few more decades, a mint condition Fluffhaus might well be a museum piece!
Ask FluffiesAreFood is a service of the Fluffherders’ Association of America. If you have a question about raising, slaughtering, or eating of fluffies, you may comment here or send FluffiesAreFood a PM via Fluffybooru.
