//------------------------------//
// Week 3: Cheerilee's Thousand Tribute - The Ooze at the Bottom of the Bin 
// Story: EqD Writers Training Ground for Georg - S5 
// by Georg 
//------------------------------//


Week 3: Cheerilee's Thousand Tribute - The Ooze at the Bottom of the Bin

For the S5 EqD Writer’s Training Ground 





After consulting with xjuggernaughtx, and determining that it would not fit correctly into his fantastic Cheerilee’s Thousand series, I’ve decided to put this forward, not as an actual canon chapter in his excellent series, but instead a small sub-branch of an orthogonal dimension of the main My Little Pony universe in which waiters actually show up at your table and take your order when you are seated instead of an hour or two later.  Presented for your enjoyment (you cruel, sadistic monsters) is a tribute to his masterpiece, what I like to think of as:


Waiter, There’s A Slime in my Soup







To Cheerilee’s continuing amazement, this was not the worst date she had ever been on.  In fact, it might not have even made the top ten list, provided the memory spell she had been liberally dosed with several times this year allowed her to remember some of the more pertinent portions of her experiences and the reams of security agreements she had been forced to sign would allow her to write any of them down.

Dusty Bins was a rather bland stallion of a dark tan color and a darker mane, so plain in fact that Cheerilee had completely overlooked him as a date until she had spotted him emptying the school dumpster yesterday morning.  She liked to think that it was not desperation that drove her to fling open the window and shout at him before he could get away, but she was starting to wonder.  Actually she had stopped wondering several weeks ago and simply filed the concept under ‘Taxes And Other Things I’m Ignoring Unless Absolutely Necessary.’

The restaurant had taken her request for a reservation this evening with their usual aplomb.  An extra employee was standing by with a fire extinguisher, a pegamedic was on-call at one of the back tables just in case a quick trip to the hospital was in order, and several of the waiters were wearing their Team Chez Gérard lacrosse gear, complete with helmets and a few strapped-on pillows.

Ignoring the odd behavior of the waitstaff, Dusty Bins was chatting along at a good pace, much as if he did not get much practice talking to other ponies and was attempting to get as much conversation in as he could before the opportunity was gone.  If that had been the extent of their interaction while waiting for the staff to dart within range of their table with some something other than a few breadsticks thrown in their direction, she would have been deliriously happy.

Not quite.

There was a plus-one at their date, who had not been invited along because Cheerilee was not aware of its existence before the date had started, although she was fully aware of it now.  To be polite, Dusty Bins had a certain ‘air’ about him, a refined⁽*⁾ mix of aromas and scents from his refuse collection job that clung to him with the frantic desperation of the chronically possessive, wandering only far enough away to stun the olfactory senses of any nearby ponies before cringing back to his oily hide.  At first, Cheerilee had thought perhaps a dead skunk had been suffocated by a bottle of perfume and left to rot for a few weeks outside her house when he had arrived promptly as scheduled and she had opened the door.  Pure instink had driven her outside, down the stairs, and off into town with Dusty right behind, because if he had paused even for a moment inside her house, she felt certain the end result would have involved a bottle of lamp oil, a match, and close examination of her homeowner’s fire insurance policy in order to make the premise habitable again.



(*) Much like a real chemical refinery would have smelled if all of the valves were opened at once while spraying it with a flamethrower.




She could get through this, even if all Bins could talk about was his work.  Recycling was interesting, and educational to boot.  Usefully classroom time could be gained through this date, or at least that was what she kept thinking while her nostrils plugged up by themselves in a futile attempt at self-defense.  Besides, if she bailed out of this date without getting something to eat to counter her stress, she was going to explode.

Four dress sizes so far and no keepers.  At this rate I’ll be the fattest and loneliest school teacher at my retirement party. 

“…so that’s why keeping your plastics separated from the glass is so important for proper…” Bins turned his head to look at the restaurant front door.  “Hey, I didn’t know there were going to be any celebrities here tonight.” 

Having Bins talk about something other than sorting trash was a pleasant interruption in Cheerilee’s attempt to reduce her breathing to a tranquil Zen state, and the ponies in question were indeed worth a polite glance, and even a long, impolite stare for the draconequus with them.

“Fluttershy, Discord, and somepony else,” said Cheerilee, suddenly realizing that the air she had just wasted on speaking was going to have to be replaced somehow.

“Not just somepony else,” said Dusty Bins in a breathy whisper.  “Her.”

“Princess Celestia?”  Cheerilee looked around, taking the opportunity to lean far away from the table and get a quick breath of somewhat less-tainted air.

“Not her.”  Dusty Bins curled up his lip and looked as if he had actually managed to smell his own reeking odor.  “Celestia still mixes her wastepaper with cake crumbs.  Tree Hugger.  She’s a legend in the EOD.”

Mistaking Cheerilee’s somewhat pinking expression for curiosity, Bins continued, “Equestrian Order of the Dumpster.  All of us Trash Hau—”  He coughed into one hoof.  “I mean Recycling Management Specialists belong.  Miss Tree Hugger had a full section in our last newsletter.  Five year rolling average of twelve grams per week of trash, with everything else being composted or recycled.”  He clutched his napkin with revolutionary zeal.  “Do you think she’s signing autographs?”

“Why, yes I am,” purred Discord, unrolling out of Dusty Bin’s napkin with an inked quill in one paw/claw and uncoiling until he stood beside the table.  “We famous draconequi are always happy to—” 

It appeared that Gods of Chaos and Disorder had just as functional noses as school teachers.  Discord froze in place as his nostrils both fell from his face and flew around the room to the sound of deflating balloons.  He pulled a giant rubber stamp out from behind his back and slammed it down on Bin’s napkin before yanking on his goatee and rolling up like a blind with a flash of violet light and a few small flakes of confetti.

“To my biggest fan,” read Bins as he held up the napkin, which was blowing out a stream of air from the inky fan blades that ruffled his mane and left a few precious untainted breaths of air to Cheerilee.  “Maybe I can get her to write on the back of the napkin,” he mused.  “It would be recycling, and dames like that.”

Cheerilee took a sideways look at the bouquet of wilted flowers that he had brought along on the date.  ‘Beloved Parent’ could just barely be seen on the side, as if the words had been rather hastily scraped off, and she was sincerely hoping that he had not acquired his suit at the same funeral parlor.

Fluttershy and Tree Hugger continued their discussion, oblivious to Dusty Bin’s longing look in their direction, as Discord slipped out the front door of the restaurant, returning in a moment with…

Something.

It looked like a slime mold wearing a hat and a bow tie, a prime example of dictyostelium discoideum if she remembered her lessons at Canterlot Academy correctly. The family of dictyostelids had been such a fascinating subject in school that she had considered it as a career, and still used her training in the field to help identify the various creatures that Snips and Snails brought in for Show-and-Tell every week.

Despite not having eyes, or a face for that matter, the ‘Smooze’ as Discord was calling it seemed to be looking at her, perhaps attracted by the glittering necklace that Dusty Bins had given her earlier.  It was a valuable gift no matter where he had dug it up (literally), and it reminded her of the ongoing date.

Unfortunately, it did not seem to remind Cheerilee’s date of her own existence.  Dusty Bins continued to look at where Discord, Fluttershy and Tree Hugger were engaged in vigorous conversation, holding the napkin in one hoof and poised to dart out at any opportunity to get it signed by his heroine.  Tree Hugger seemed fascinated by Discord, sitting with a distracted smile and sparkling eyes, only contributing to his argument with Fluttershy by the occasional ‘Groovy’ or ‘Not cool.’  The only thing that seemed to bother her was the bowl of carrot sticks at their table, which had been actually sliced instead of being natural, like the cosmic aura of the place truly deserved.

“Your salad, Madam.”  Two bowls of leafy salad floated over to their table, propelled by a unicorn water holding a napkin over his muzzle with one hoof.  The greenery-filled bowls had barely touched down when Cheerilee buried her nose into the fresh lettuce, taking a quick breath as she ate.

Slow down!  Four dress sizes! 

Speed up!  Can’t hold breath much longer!

She surfaced in a small spray of salad dressing, determined to make her excuses for an early end to a perfect evening except for a sudden desire to wash her mane and correct tests for tomorrow’s class.

Only Dusty Bins was not there.

Well, technically he was there, floating in the center of the luminous green Smooze, who was sitting/engulfing the other chair at the table, as well as somehow blessedly managing to eliminate the awful stench that had been filling the area.  The Smooze smiled, ignoring the flailings of the frantic stallion in his innards, and silently slurped the lettuce out of Bin’s salad bowl.

“Oh!” said Cheerilee, sparing a quick glance at Discord, who did not seem to notice that his plus one was snacking at a neighboring table.  “Do you like… the salad?”

The Smooze nodded, jiggling as his inner pseudoplasmodium reacted to the kinetic energy of the movement and rolled Dusty Bins around in his gelatinous prison.  It was a fascinating example of inertia and fluid dynamics, but Cheerilee felt a little guilty about monopolizing Discord’s date.

Well, she would have felt guilty, if Discord seemed to have even noticed the Smooze had wandered away.

“So,” she started, “do you come here often?”


 ~ ~ ~ * ~ ~ ~ 


Hours later, Cheerilee staggered back to her house, piled the slime-covered dress into her trash bin, and spent some quality time in the yard under the chill spray of her garden hose to wash the worst of the ooze and slime from her coat.  After a long hot shower and a gallon of Alfalfa-Crunch ice cream, she slumped down on the couch and marked a check on a long, long list of names.

“That’s it.  From now on, it’s multicellular organisms only.  He was all flagella, all night.”