Short Story Idea: we follow people through their day and everyone is fantastically happy, and then towards the end we pan up to see a comet getting closer to the earth. And slowly reveal that everyone's happy because in the year since we found out, construction stopped, advertising stopped...
And to avoid riots and disruption, the government opened up every empty home or place under construction, emptied the food stores, strategic fuel reserve, and everyone had a home, stuff was cheap, and scarcity didn't matter anymore.
Based on my experience during COVID, and that time I temporarily went deaf - and discovered that I was waaaaaay happier, because there was nothing to bug me in my home anymore.