//------------------------------// // Plain And Simple // Story: Late Night Encounters At The Gas Station // by Barracuda cyborg //------------------------------// A few days had passed, and the two clerks had indeed continued work as usual. At this point, taking the night shift was normal for the two as if they were wanting to see what would happen next. After the fight, the craziness, and odd purchases, they were preparing for anything to happen; but what could happen? The two looked outside, counting the cars that passed outside and making it a fun game. It was a neck and neck game that was interrupted as the door opened. An orange pony with blonde hair and a cowboy hat walked in.  It was odd, to say the least, but at least there wasn’t anything resulting in the destruction of the store. The two were surprised; so much so that they knew there had to be something else behind this, so naturally they decided to follow the pony. The pony looked around aimlessly, all she could do was rub her head as the colorful bags were not helping her in her shopping. “Do you need any help?” Derrick asked, breaking the customers concentration. “I do actually.” The pony answered, turning around to see the duo, “Do y’all happen to have any aspirin or something?” “That’s it?” Mark asked. “Well I would’ve gotten some earlier, but I got busy with work, and by the time I was finished… all the stores were closed.” The pony replied, as she was talking she had made her way to the drink coolers, “I then thought I could wait until tomorrow, but this headache is killing me, I couldn’t even fall asleep.” “Yeah I know how that feels.” Derrick stated, “Don’t we Mark?” Mark sighed as he knew exactly what his friend was talking about, “Oh… the night when we ran into that pink pony?” “You know it. I swear by the end of the night I was seriously suggesting we should just find a different job.” Derrick said. “Y’all ran into Pinkie Pie?” The pony asked. “Well she found us.” Mark replied, “We were more or less trying to catch her and stop her from destroying the place; In the end she just ran off with all our candies.” “Yeah that does sound like Pinkie.” The pony muttered before extending her hoof, “I’m Applejack by the way.” “Well it’s nice to meet ya.” Mark said, “ I’m Mark and this is my pal Derrick.” “Hey there.” Derrick said, “You were looking for aspirin right?” “Yeah, do you guys got any?” Applejack answered. “I think we have them in that one section no one looks at.” Mark replied. “That’s not where we keep them.” Derrick said, “We moved them behind the counter.” “Why did we do that?” Mark asked. “That was because of that scare, back around Halloween.” Derrick replied, grabbing the keys to the locked items behind the counter, “It was that time when people thought it was part of some underground smuggling ring.” “I still don’t understand how that sorta junk gets so much traction.” Mark replied, “I mean, what could anyone possibly do with it?” “Stupidity isn’t a virus, but it spreads like one.” Derrick sighed. He grabbed one of the bottles and placed it on the counter, “So it’s just the pills and water?” “Yeah, now how much do I owe ya?” Applejack asked as she dug around her saddle bags. The clerks however were too busy thinking about what was going on. This was too simple! No comedic chases, no destruction of store and mind, no comedy of errors when looking for items. It was just a plain and simple purchase that anyone could make. Sure the reason why the item in question was outta place was off, but any store would have a reason to why something is out of place. It was off putting to the duo, and they had to say something about it. “Are you sure that’s everything?” Mark asked. Applejack looked at the boy quizzically, “What else would I need?” She asked, “I got what I came here for.” Derrick looked up as soon as he was done with scanning the two items, “Sorry, he’s just a bit confused why the purchase was so ordinary.”  Applejack looked at the two, “You guys must be used to crazy ain’t ya?” She asked. “You have no idea.” The two sighed in unison. The farm pony chuckled, “I get it.” She stated, “You deal with craziness so much, it oddly enough becomes normal, anything else seems practically alien to ya.” The group began to laugh for a good while until Derrick looked back at the register, “Anyway, your total is six dollars.” Applejack sighed, “Fair enough.” She paid and then proceeded to try and open the bottle. “Need some help?” Mark asked, Applejack nodded as she was now trying to open the bottle with her teeth. The clerk grabbed the bottle and unscrewed the lid, “this is a easy open bottle, how can you-“ Mark stopped himself and looked at himself and then back to the farm pony, “right...hands.” Eventually he solved the bottle issue and Applejack walked out, now hoping for a more restful sleep. “Thanks a lot fellas!” “So… that was odd.” Derrick simply said. “I know.” Mark replied heading back to the register, “I mean after everything we’ve dealt with before.” “Yeah, I just wasn’t expecting something so normal.” Derrick said, “But at this point, what is exactly normal?” Mark smirked, “At least it isn’t another Pinkie encounter.” The two began laughing as they now saw one of the craziest nights of their lives was now one of the funniest things they can just spring up for a quick laugh. Their lives clearly weren’t going to be the same since the night they met these multicolored ponies waltzed into the doors of the store, anything to keep themselves distracted during the night shift was a good thing. Now the only thing that the two clerks were thinking  of at this point was how long was this craziness going to last?