//------------------------------//
// Upper-Class Lightning 
// Story: My Little Pony, My Little Pony, and Me 317: Hello, Humans! 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
//------------------------------//

“Now can we have a Yahooves?” Ditto asked plaintively.
“Yeah, hit me,” Juice said.
“Alright. This question was sent in by user Darkstarling and is written by -- oh hey, I got one! It was written by user H_Bouquet. Uh. This is actually… kinda a weird one for this service.”
“Weird? On Yahooves Answers?” Juice asked.
“How can you tell?” Scraps asked.
“...You’ll see. It reads, 


How might one explain to one’s local weather bureau that they must be more careful with their lightning?”


“I…” Scraps trailed off. “Yeah. Okay, I see what you’re saying.”
“The content is right,” Juice mused. “It’s only the language that’s… Ditto, how confident are we that this one isn’t from an alternate universe?”
“We can get into that after I read the body of this… open letter, I think would be the phrase.


Dear Yahooves Answers Community --”


Both Scraps and Juice burst out laughing. “No! No, you’re making this up,” Scraps said, pointing at Ditto.
“I’m not! Look, it’s right here!” He waved a piece of paper at them.


“Dear Yahooves Answers Community,
I am struck with a most terribly inefficient local weather bureau. They permit the clouds to drift willy-nilly through the sky, they allow the rain to fall in far greater quantities than is necessary for the growing of my husband’s flower garden, and they have even been so sloppy as to allow hail to get mixed in with the rain. All of this I have been prepared to let go after receiving no response to my complaints from that department. Que sera, sera, say I. I really should complain to somepony in a seat of higher authority. My husband works for the town council, you know.”


“Hey, Ditto?” Scraps interrupted.
“Yeah?”
“Are we actually gonna get a question anywhere in here?”
“Gimme a minute.


However, this latest indignity is far too ignominious to be borne. Just last week, we had a Storm. Thankfully, I was warned of this well in advance, and hosted only indoors entertainments that evening -- a lovely candlelit supper with my neighbors, followed by tea in the parlor from my Royal Sisters China set with the Hoofpainted Periwinkles. During these festivities, however, a straying bolt of lightning hit my lightning rod! It has become tarnished and slightly bent! I know that Mrs. Number 23 smirks at it every time she walks past my house, simply because her piddly little lightning rod nevertheless remains in perfect condition. My husband has attempted to claim that lightning rods are not a status symbol. The poor dear clearly works himself too hard at his very important government job. How can I explain to my local weather bureau that lightning ought not to strike at any higher-class lightning rods and instead reserve their force for less impressive devices at cheaper and tawdrier addresses?
Best wishes to all,
H. Bouquet.”



There was a pause. “What the fuck?” Juice said. “I mean -- what the fuck.”
“So, uh.” Scraps took off his glasses and polished them. “Okay. Just before we get into this question, I’m gonna guess that this represents H. Bouquet’s first, last, and only experience with the Yahooves Answer Service.”
“Oh, undoubtedly,” Ditto said. “Which means that this question is an incredibly limited resource. Boys, we find ourselves faced with the challenge of goofing on this question harder than it has goofed on itself by the simple virtue of its existence. Are you feeling up for that?”
“Aw, Ditto, did you have to put it like that? You got me all self-conscious now,” Juice said.
Scraps, meanwhile, was deep in contemplation. “So… H. Bouquet is proud of their lightning rod because it’s longer and fancier than their neighbor’s.””
“Scraps,” Ditto said warningly. “Dick jokes are too easy.”
“No! That’s not where I was going with that at all.”
“Really?”
“Ditto?” Juice said. “When have you ever heard anycreature bragging about how fancy their dick is?”
“When you go down to the alehouse, do you hear ponies boasting about how glittery their genitals are?” Scraps asked.
“Well -- okay, yes, continue please Scraps.”
Scraps readjusted his glasses. “Well,” he said. “If she’s worried about how classy her lightning rod is, maybe she should work on attracting fancier lightning.”
“Ooooh,” his brothers chorused, nodding. 
“You gotta get that upper-crust lightning,” Juice said.
“Precisely,” Scraps said. “When the lightning hit your rod, did you notice it striking with a particularly posh Lawndon accent?”
“Was it especially notable in the way it forked?” Ditto asked. “Was it, um… an electrifying conversationalist?”
“Well, obviously it was,” Juice said with some scorn. “All lightning bolts are.”
“We can agree, though, that this was probably a very upper-class lightning bolt for a very fancy lightning rod,” Scraps said.
“Hell yeah! In your face, Mrs. Number 23,” Ditto said.
“Well, obviously, yeah,” Juice said. “It was a well-bred bolt, it probably went to private school and learned to thunder with marbles in its mouth. But here’s the thing, boys -- that lightning rod’s a little busted now. It’s a little bent and burnt.”
“Mm, not as fancy,” Scraps said, rubbing his chin. “Tricky. Pretty soon, you’ll start attracting lightning that has grease stains on it and doesn’t wear a tie.”
“Ideally, you’d want to replace the lightning rod and all, but the husband says no,” Juice mused. “So that means that we’re gonna need to find other ways to attract only the most urbane lightning.”
There was a long pause. “...Tiny sandwiches,” Ditto said.
“This is turning out to be a very fancy food-heavy episode,” Scraps observed.
“Yeah, but Juice did that Munch Squad so it cancels out.”
“Fair enough!”
“Uh, what about oil paintings?” Juice interjected.
“Oil paintings of… what, famous lightning?” Scraps asked.
“Well, obviously,” Ditto said. “You don’t get oil paintings of common lightning, Scrappy.”
Scraps tilted his head. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair,” he admitted. “Just. Landscapes with storms in the background?”
“I think in this case, they’d be considered portraits with countryside in the foreground,” Juice pointed out.
Ditto rubbed his chin. “You know, boys, I think that we might have ignored the central question of H. Bouquet’s problem. This isn’t the only trouble they’ve had with the weather department. Maybe they should be responsible for ensuring that the very classy lightning goes to the appropriate homes.”
“You have to sort the clouds by how formal they are,” Scraps agreed. “Boys? Which is classier, a, uh…”
“Now we get to see if Scraps can name two types of clouds,” Ditto said, turning aside to murmur into his microphone like a golf commentator. “He’s lined up the shot, and he swings --”
“A… cumulus…”
“One down,” Juice said with a nod.
“Or… a…” Scraps licked his lips nervously. “A nimbus.”
“Now Scrappy,” Ditto said, leaning on the table. “Can you actually tell us the difference between a cumulus and a nimbus cloud?”
“Well,” Scraps said. “A cumulus has a ‘c’ in it for ceiling, and a nimbus has a ‘b’ in it for ‘bottom’, so I’m going to say that a cumulus floats higher than a nimbus cloud.”
“Which, as we all know, is a cloud that comes from your bottom,” Juice interjected.
“What? No!” Scraps said. “The ‘b’ is for bottom because it might poke you in the bottom.”
“Scraps, is it possible that you’re thinking of stalagmites?” Ditto asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous, stalagmites aren’t clouds,” Scraps said. “But like… what I’m getting at is, are clouds that float high in the sky --”
“Like cumulus clouds,” Juice said.
“Yes. Are they therefore higher-class than nimbus clouds?”
Ditto gave his middlest brother a side-eye. “Is that what you were getting at?”
“Uh, you can’t prove otherwise.”
“I’m gonna say yes,” Juice said. “Because nimbus clouds -- which may or may not be fart clouds --”
“They aren’t,” Scraps said. “I’m 85% confident that they aren’t.”
“-- they’re the salt of the earth. They come from the ground, they work their way up. They’re blue-collar workers, is what I’m saying.”
“Hey guys?” Ditto asked. “As three idiot brothers who do a comedy advice show and go on tour and stuff, are we blue-collar or white-collar?”
“Uh, I think I can safely say that we’re no-collar,” Juice said. “You ready to move on?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Ditto agreed.