“I’m so sorry,” Caramel said, pressing his hooves firmly against his forehead. The pressure was becoming intense.
“It's not your fault,” Cheerilee replied, sighing.
“I know,” Caramel said, grimacing. “But, if I hadn’t suggested an amusement park…”
“Look, don’t beat yourself up over it,” Cheerilee said, attempting to shift positions to relieve her aching shoulders. “It’s probably my fault, actually.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” Cheerilee answered, glancing down at the ponies running to and fro below them. “Never mind.”
Both ponies flinched as the vomiting began again. Somewhere behind them, somepony was alternately heaving and moaning pitifully. As the retching reached its crescendo, the workers below scurried out of the way, and what might have once been funnel cake splattered onto the asphalt path. The pony behind them began his litany of apologies again.
They’d been stuck upside down on this roller coaster for five hours now, and from the looks of the perplexed maintenance crews below them, they might be here quite a while longer. There seemed to be a lot of shouting and hoof-pointing going on; a lot of yelling about ‘impossibility’ and ‘unheard of.’
I could only wish it was ‘unheard of,’ Cheerilee thought, trying in vain to find somewhere to rest her pounding head. Sitting upside down on her shoulders, she’d begun to ache in ways that she didn’t think were possible. Maybe I should just get it over with and join a convent. It would certainly save everypony a lot of trouble.
“I can’t believe this,” Caramel said. “I mean, how does something like this even happen? It’s a roller coaster!” Caramel waved his legs at the track in front of them. “The whole point is that it coasts!” He turned as well as he could to Cheerilee, given the restrictive harnesses. “What would it even get stuck on?!”
“Mom, I can’t hold it anymore!” somepony cried behind them.
“Bramblehoof, don’t you—oh, Bramble…”
Cheerilee squeezed her eyes closed, wishing she could cover her ears as a large portion of the car cried out in disgust. The familiar gagging began immediately after, followed by yet more apologizing.
“I don’t know, Caramel,” she finally answered. Thinking was becoming very difficult.
“Are you ponies okay up there?” an amplified voice called from below. A stallion with a bullhorn and a hard hat had pulled a wooden crate from somewhere and was standing on it to address them.
“NO!” the trapped ponies called back in unison.
“Well, we just want you to know that we’re working on the problem and we’re having a unicorn bring you up some moist towelettes and free passes.”
“Why don’t you have the unicorns help us out of here!” Caramel screamed back.
“Sorry, buddy!” the stallion with the bullhorn said. “Union rules. Passengers trapped on rides must be rescued by the pegasi, and they’re on break.”
“On break?!” Caramel yelled, his eyes somehow bulging more than they had been previously. “We’ve been up here for hours!”
“Hey, it’s complicated, buddy!” the stallion said. “The contract states that the pegasi have every tenth Saturday off, but because of our labor policies, it must be designated as a twenty-four hour break, rather than PTO.” The stallion spread his hooves out beside him as the passengers began yelling. “It’s not like I control what the company and the union agree to.”
“Well, then who’s going to get us down?!” a voice yelled from behind them.
“Mom…” Bramblehoof said.
“What? You just went!” his mother said.
“No, I gotta do the other one…” Bramblehoof replied. “The pizza made my tummy hurt.”
“Look, you need to get us down!” Cheerilee snapped at the hard-hatted stallion. “We’ve got sick foals up here.”
“Believe me, lady, we’re working on it,” the stallion replied seriously. “We’ve had a full crew examining the union regs, and we have one or two hot leads that might pan out. If anyone has a full scale medical emergency, we can intervene.” He shielded his eyes with a hoof, searching the coaster’s passengers. “Any of you feeling, uh, heart attack-ish?”
“Yes!” Caramel yelled back. “I can feel my left leg going numb! Get us down!”
Two unicorns trotted up to the lead stallion. The first began whispering in his ear. The second opened a small white box and levitated several white squares out of it.
“So who wanted towelettes?” he called up to them, floating the wipes up to them until they were within reach. Without anything else to occupy her time, Cheerilee took one and cleaned her face and hooves with it.
“Sorry, buddy!” the head stallion called up. “My medical unicorn here says he doesn’t detect any significant evidence of arrhythmia or cardiac distress. But don’t worry, we’ve cut the chains on the doors to the park’s sub-sub basement storage facility, and volumes thirty-eight through fifty-five of the regs are rumored to be in there.” He offered the passengers a hopeful smile. “They haven’t been seen for fifty years, so who knows what loopholes we might find. This is really historic stuff!” The stallion skipped out of the way as the vomiter began again.
Caramel turned to Cheerilee again, his eyes filled with furious tears. “I’m so sorry!” he said again. “I-I just wanted to take you someplace really fun after last time!”
“I know,” Cheerilee answered softly. “Really, it’s not your fault.”
Below them, a pony covered in dust and cobwebs galloped up to the stallion with the bullhorn.
“Okay,” the lead stallion called to them again after a short conference. “It looks like we could get away with collapsing the ride and then picking all of you out of the rubble. My crew is allowed to rescue ponies that are on the ground. What’s the general consensus up there on that?”
“Have you lost your mind?!” Caramel yelled back. “Just get somepony up here and deal with the union later!”
“Look, you have to understand our position!” the lead stallion answered. “There are rules in place here! You can’t just go off half-cocked, rescuing anypony in trouble. There’s a system! Now, I’ve got a demolition crew on standby. Do you want to get rescued or not?”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Caramel said, rubbing his temples vigorously.
“I can,” Cheerilee replied. Reaching over, she grabbed the little bit of his hoof that she could reach. “But don’t worry about it. This happens all the time.”
I can't believe the kind of bad luck poor Cheerilee has with her dates.
Dat last line.
Just yes.
~Skeeter The Lurker
I can't even... Just... Poor Cheerilee.
Physics weep at this.
WEEP!
So Cheerilee is some sort of bad luck magnet on dates. This time I feel bad for Caramel. Poor Caramel. I thought he already had girlfriend though.
Well, he had one as of Hearts and Hooves Day, but at date number twelve, who knows when this was?
3588855 That's the power of Cheerilee! Fundamental laws of the universe are secondary to her having a terrible night out.
3588815 I know... I'm sorry.
3588806 Slowly laying some foundations...
And this is why I don't ride roller coasters
3588875
I kind of envision Cheerilee marching over to Fluttershy's house and kicking Discord as hard as she can in the chaosmakers at some point.
Here's some advice Caramel: Next time you go on a date with Cheerilee, get some four-leaf clovers and ask Fluttershy if it's okay to bring Angel along. There's no guarantee it'll work, but it can't hurt to try.
3588906 She should just go ask him out for some relative normalcy.
I want to see her try a house date. Let's see her screw that up!
On the bright side Caramel seems a nice stallion, shame after this he wont want to come within a mile of Cheerilee. Maybe some danger seeker will date her next hoping he whole thing will turn into a disaster and then be turned off by the fact it's a perfectly normal night out.
3588932 She could but I don't think Discord would really see anything in Cheerilee, I think he's already got feelings for either Twilight, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, or Princess Celestia.
At this point I'm sorta looking forward to the date with the paranormal investigator who's heard the stories of all her awful luck and decided that she must actually be haunted.
3588895 Really, it's almost totally impossible for this to happen. That's why it happened.
3588931 Oh, yeah. Bringing a grumpy Angel Bunny is totally gonna make the date go smoothly!
That's a pretty great idea, actually!
3588939 She might be a little afraid to go to a house at this point.
3589372 I meant a date at her house.
3589011 Ha! That's great! Dating Cheerilee could be a competitive sporting event for thrill-seekers.
3589176 He's Discord. He can pretty much date as many beings as he wants. He can split himself up as much as he wants.
However, there's only one person Discord is really interested in: Discord.
3589376 Well, she certainly doesn't want anything to go wrong there! She should start selling her services. Need a disaster? Cheerilee will come have a date at your location for the low, low price of one hundred bits.
3589235 That's tangentially related to an idea I'm already working on. Not directly, but it has some of the same flavor.
3589398 I'm thinking her rationale would be that she can control circumstances in her own house if she;s sufficiently prepared. Oh, how she would be wrong.
3588875
So basically Cheeriliee need to date Pinkie Pie just to be safe.
I'd say this date went relatively smoothly, I could see Cheerilee give him a second chance later on.
3589690 That would be a third try! This is Caramel's second go-around!
3589699 D'oh! Well then, third time's a charm?
3589688 The possibilities of that going cataclysmically wrong will keep the Mane Six from ever letting that happen.
3589706 Caramel's pretty determined to win her heart...
3589708
Bring on the Popcorn!
reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/popcorn_my_little_pony.gif
3589708 Well let's see,
Fluttershy cost her a date that she almost had in the bag.
She crashed into the Apple Famiy's cart of manure, even if it wasn't Applejack's fault.
Rainbow Dash would view her as too much of an egghead.
Chances are she and Rarity are childhood friends, and trying to date said friend would be akward. Asumiing Rarity's even into mares, or hasn't fallen for someone else.
Twilight as a princess would attract a lot of unwanted attention that poor Cheerilee could never tolerate.
And Pinkie Pie probably already knows just how horrible her dates have gone, and Pinkie Pie likely reminds Cheerilee of the many colts and fillies in her class.
So yeah, none of the mane six are likely going to hook up with her or even date her.
3589755 I think pretty soon, any pony with an ounce of deductive reasoning will be running for the hills when she says, "So, do you have any plans tonight?"
3589769
Not unless the pony in question is a masochist.
3589885 Fifty Shades of Neigh?
“There are rules in place here! You can’t just rescue anypony in trouble. There’s a system. Now, I’ve got a demolition crew on standby. Do you want to get rescued or not?”
First thoughts :What a hay!? and
Twelve down, nine hundred eighty eight to go!
Barber, Shop Keeper, Light House Pony, Sea-Pony, Fire Fighter, Circus Clown, Demolitions Expert, Ex-Commando, THE LIST SHALL GO ON!
3601262 Anytime you want to visit violence upon Gridiron, feel free.
3592833 That number haunts my dreams!
3591609 Is it any surprise that I've worked by inside of and around a union for a long, long time?
i14.photobucket.com/albums/a331/brittmcgee/MLP%20Minecraft/TLSOA_zps2aa17c49.png
When labour unions started putting their petty regulations before their trade and customers, that is when the western world started going insane. I'm glad to see Equestria did not escape that curse.
3591609 when I saw that part I was liek wtf and HOW DARE U EVL PONYZ WHY U NO GET TEH POOR TRAPPED POHNYZ DOWN
3688646
What a lovely, but utterly ridiculous sentiment.
3602571
EVERYONE, GET BACK, MR. SCREECHES AND I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT!
What- why- I just don't even.
Good lord, that's one of the biggest fears I have. Being stuck upside-down on a roller coaster. I'm afraid of heights too, so that goes double. @_@ Not to mention being near someone puking. That's the trifecta right there.