//------------------------------// // Chapter 28: Ponies at Walmart Part 3—Electronics and stationery // Story: Pandemic: Starting Over // by Halira //------------------------------// The electronics section was one of those sections that constantly evolved over the years. I remembered when I was a little girl that it was filled with VHS tapes, music cassettes, classic eight-bit Nintendo games, and stereo boomboxes. As I got older, VHS tapes made way for CDs, then later DVDs, and again later Blu-rays. The boomboxes of old vanished from the shelves, and the music section moved from cassettes to CDs to being devoid of music. Over the last few years, as progress had continued to march on, so had the electronics section.  Most of the section was now dominated by cell phones, in twice the number of styles now that they had to accommodate both ponies and humans. Flat-screen televisions still lined the back wall, which were more computer than television these days. There was a section for laptop computers, but no desktops, as the standard desktop computer seemed to be on its way out, at least by what I'd observed, and I wasn't sure when was the last time I'd seen a desktop for sale anywhere but online. There were still movies and video games, but they no longer came on disks; instead, now all coming on flashcards that were to be inserted directly to a television or laptop—if the consumer didn't just download the things. Video game companies now acted like movie studios, with individual franchises under their belt, making the console wars a thing of the past, aside from some gimmicky peripherals.  Before looking at phones, I grabbed a pair of pony-friendly video game controls and a charging station for them. I wasn't going to buy games on this trip, but I could download some later on that the foals wouldn't find too challenging to play during rainy days. The controllers were things that sat on the ground, with actual joysticks like the arcades of old, and four large action buttons. I also grabbed a few flashcards for some cartoon series: Tiny Toons, Ninja Turtles, She-Ra, Power Ponies, and Transformers—I'd get at least one of the foals interested in Transformers yet.  I spotted yet another night pony stallion wandering around, looking at video games, this one with a light brown coat and forest green mane. He had what looked like a twenty-sided game die rolling over a sheet of paper for a mark. This was the third night pony stallion I'd seen in the store, and that was a significant oddity. Night ponies were in the running with crystal ponies as the smallest tribe, and night pony stallions made up less than one-tenth of the night ponies. That meant it was typically rare to see more than one in a short period unless you were at a gathering of mostly night ponies, and even then, they'd be outnumbered by the mares nine to one.  "Excuse me, is there a night pony stallion convention going on or something?" I asked the stallion. "I don't mean to be rude, but I've noticed a lot of you in this store." He turned and blinked at me, as if unsure what I was talking about or whether he should be offended. It seemed to register a second later, and he chuckled. "Oh, that. Many of us like to come to hang out here after work because our mares don't come here. They can get to be a bit much for us, and we want to have some peace without some mare sizing us up as a potential mate." It was my turn to blink. I hadn't noticed that there were no night pony mares around before, but now I did. "Why don't they come here?" "Last year, a bunch of them got into a big brawl in the store, nopony even remembers what started it, but it was a huge mess. They had to call in the cops, shut down the store for over an hour, and everything. The store management banned seven of them from the store for life, and the rest started boycotting the store in retaliation. Since then, this has been one of the few safe spaces for night pony stallions in the city." "Surely they can't all be that bad," I responded in shock.  He shook his head. "It doesn't need to be all of them that are that bad or even most; it is enough of them that every time we see an unfamiliar night pony mare, we get nervous. I have a buddy of mine that said he never understood how women felt about constantly being hit on until he became a pony, but he sure as hell does now. I fully agree with him." This did sound eerily familiar to what I heard many women say back when I was human. It wasn't an exclusively female problem since that kind of abuse could go both ways, but it was a far more prevalent one. It sounded like the scales tipped the other way for night ponies. "What about the good ones?" He smiled. "The good ones are great. I'm dating a mare named Night Angel, who treats me like a prince and doesn't try to treat me like her property. My marefriend before her I thought was great, a really good looker, but she was controlling about who I was talking to, and if I said two words to another mare—it could be just an old friend innocently saying hi, she'd go nuts. Angel doesn't do that." He looked more closely at me. "Hey, aren't you—" I turned away. "Nice speaking with you, but I'm rather busy. Good luck with the whole night pony mare thing." Lántiān raised an eyebrow at me as I came hurrying by her. "Ma'am, is every human and pony going to react to your presence?" I sighed as I walked over to the cell phones. "I don't know. I've been staying out of public places since I was pardoned, so I don't know if this is the new normal or just an anomaly. Based on how my trip to Pony Hope went, everyone is going to stare, and if that is all they do, then I should be happy." "How did your trip to Pony Hope go, ma'am? You seemed in good spirits after returning." I shook my head. "Visiting my parents was great. It was a healing experience to reconnect with them and to meet my little brother. I'll have to introduce you all to them sometime. However, I was attacked in the street, and I wouldn't be surprised if my attackers would have tried to kill me if given a chance." Lántiān went wide-eyed and laid her ears back. "Did you go to the authorities about these criminals, ma'am?" "No, not sure it would have helped," I answered as I started looking at phones. "For all I know, their police department may be packed with Shimmerists. The situation was dealt with by the citizens of the town, and Sunrise Storm escorted me out of there. I'll be looking into ways to minimize incidents like that, don't worry." She stomped a hoof. "Ma'am, any threat to you is a threat to me, my brothers, and my daughter. I have every reason to be concerned." I gave her a flat look. "And I shall work to make sure there are fewer threats to us all. We'll discuss this later." I looked back at the phones on display and finished making my selections. I then looked at the man standing on the other side of the display counter while pointing a hoof at a strap-on phone. "Sir, is this the best model you have for GPS tracking and signal coverage?" The man walked over and took a look at the phone I was pointing at. "Not quite, it's the most expensive pony phone, yeah, but that's because it has health monitoring options. It's up there on coverage, maybe in the top three, but the iPhone F8 is going to give you the best coverage, both with signal and GPS; it has satellite options in addition to normal cellular coverage," He pointed to the phone beside the one I had been looking at, which was the third most expensive of the pony phones.  "I'll take two and two sim cards," I replied. "I want to buy them outright, no contracts that bake the price of the phones in. I've got the money." Well, SPEC and Wild Growth had the money, but they were the ones paying for this, not me. I looked at Larry and Moe. "Whichever one of you has the credit card, please get that ready." Larry started fishing in his pockets as the clerk rang up the phones. The clerk looked at me. "Do you have existing numbers that you need to be loaded onto the sim cards?" "Just one, 303-321-8798. The other can be a new number," I answered.  "The previous carrier?" the clerk asked.  "Um, Sprint, I think. Who am I signing up with?" It didn't matter to me who the carrier was, Wild was going to pay the bill, but I still needed to tell her who she was paying so my phone didn't get shut off. "Walmart Family Mobile, it works in conjunction with T-Mobile. There are instructions on how to set up your account included with your sim card. You will still be able to use your old number, but there is a service fee for transferring it." "That's fine, just finish ringing up the phones." He paused and stared at me. "Are you Sunset Blessing?" I gritted my teeth. "Just ring up the phones. I'm just a customer trying to make her purchase." Shǔguāng tapped my leg. "New Mama, I'm bored."  My throat seized up, and I had to cough to clear it. Jesus, this kid moved fast with his adoption! "First of all, don't call me that. Call me Auntie Sunset. Second of all, we'll be out of here soon, just be patient and behave." "I'm bored too, Auntie Sunset," Líng chimed in. Mèng was unable to vocalize his agreement properly, but his wide yawn told me that he was ready to be done as well. I looked around. Perhaps this was a bit too much for them for today. "After I finish with these phones, we're going to go get drawing stuff for your sister. I'll get crayons and paper for the rest of you as well; then we will head back home, okay?" "Okay," Shǔguāng and Líng chorused.  "What about food, ma'am?" Lántiān questioned. "And bed covers, and other needed items? I thought we were getting all these things." "Wild Growth is moving us to a new home soon," I explained. "We will get the bed covers when we know what your beds will look like. As for food, we can order take out if needed until the move. I don't want to fill the cupboard with extra food until then. It is less for us to try to move." Honestly, I had initially planned on getting both those things today, but I had been growing steadily more anxious the longer we were out. Too many people recognized me, and who knew how long it would be until someone made a scene. The colts were not used to being out around so many people either, and I had given them enough time out for today. It was best to ease them into being around others. The phones were paid for, and their bag with a stapled receipt was added to the cart. All that was left to worry about was art supplies and checkout.  The stationery section was in sight of the electronics section, and I guided everyone over to it. This particular section looked like a hurricane had gone off in it, with everything scattered about in the wrong places, piles of mismatched writing materials laying at the bottom of the shelves below their pegs, and at least half the labels either missing or identifying an utterly different item than what was there. I was immediately disgusted by the chaos, but I'd made a promise to get art supplies, and I wasn't going to break a promise just because I was annoyed at a mess. Thankfully, this wasn't a section that I needed to let the foals browse around for their preferences. I walked around and started tossing crayons, pencils, pens, paint sets, sketchbooks, construction paper, and drawing guides all into the cart. Mèng watched the first few items that went flying over his head in fascination, but whatever entertainment that provided was short-lived, and he let off a long-drawn-out yawn.  I glanced over at the neighboring book section. "One more thing, some educational materials to fill in your knowledge. Do any of you even know how to read the writing in this country?" "I can, ma'am," Lántiān replied before grimacing. "At least, I can if I take my time reading it. Your letters are taught to foals in Chinese schools at a young age, but the way you spell words is nonsensical and hard to understand. I confess, my head swam trying to understand silent letters and why a letter should sound one way in one word and entirely different in the next, or how two words that are spelled the exact same way could be pronounced two very different ways." "We know all the letters, but don't know how to make them into American words," Shǔguāng said, apparently speaking for himself and Líng.  That was more than I expected. They were still going to need private tutors. I had no intention of trying to force them into public school if they were all on a first-grade level at best when it came to writing in English. It shouldn't take more than a few months to bring the colts up to speed; their sister might be a different matter. I grabbed some books for reading and spelling skills and added those to the cart.  I looked around and saw no ponies or humans sharing the aisle with us. "We made it through this section without any misadventures; maybe we can check the remaining areas briefly before we leave." The two older colts visibly groaned, but their sister seemed pleased. The next closest area that was of interest was clothing and accessories. I led the group into the pony section and paused dead in my tracks as soon as we got among the racks. Standing before me was a familiar pony with freakishly-long glowing wings. What the hell was she doing here?! Of all the mad scientists I had previously employed, Candace was among one of the hardest to keep in line. My eyes went wider as she was joined by two more pegasi, stallions this time, that seemed to share in her glowing feather mutation. There were more of them?  Both of the stallions had night pony-like features to their ears and eyes and coloring. One of them had a dark purplish coat with a slightly lighter purple mane and a burning heart for a mark. The other was a dark greenish brown-furred stallion with an orange and yellow mane. The wings weren't glowing all the time, but I caught glimpses of each having their feathers glow. Had she somehow altered other pegasi to be like her, or were there just more people that had pulled the same reckless trick to turn into ponies during the end of ETS and ended up with similar results?  They hadn't seen me, and I had no interest in them seeing me. I knew for a fact that Candace would immediately try to corner me and drill me for information about transformation magic. She had dreams of making herself into an alicorn and was sure it could be done with just enough understanding of science and magic, and I had a lot of knowledge she would want. I had no idea what her companions' feelings about this were, but they were like her and with her, and that didn't bode well.  I turned back to the group. "I changed my mind; we'll go check out now. Larry and Moe, can you two please keep the buggies to either side of me till we get out of here? I don't want these ponies to see me. They're potentially more dangerous than Shimmerists." They shrugged and did as they were told. I was ready to leave; I had enough of Walmart for one day. I'd shop online in the future.