“Mr. Jar? Ah, hello, Mr. Jar. I’m Byline, from the Ponyville Independent Press.”
“Good afternoon, Ms. Byline. Please, come in.”
“Thank you for granting this interview, Mr. Jar.”
“Oh, my pleasure. And please, Mr. Jar is my father. Call me Jam.”
The reporter, a tan-coated earth pony, smiled graciously. “As you wish, Jam. I’ll set up the recorder, and we can begin.”
“Certainly. The living room will be fine. You can put the recorder on the coffee table.”
“That should work nicely.” Byline opened her notepad and readied her pencil. “Alright, we are recording. This is an interview with Mr. Jam Jar, Ponyville’s head quality assurance tester for jams, jellies, preserves, and compotes. Jam, how long have you been Ponyville’s JJPC tester?”
“Nearly 50 years, Byline.”
Her pencil moved across her pad. “That’s a long career. How did you get started?”
He settled deeper into his chair, and smiled across the years. “When I was just a foal, I knew I wanted this job. It was my dream to work with jams, jellies, preserves, and compotes, my dream to make them the best they could be for my fellow Ponyvillians. I studied hard, I trained hard, and when I graduated I was hired as an entry-level jelly sniffer. Now, jelly sniffing is tedious work, but rewarding. You should never underestimate the importance of the sniff test. When I was just a starter sniffer, I caught a bad batch that would have given half the town indigestion. That was when I knew for sure I’d found my calling, and from that moment on, I sniffed the jelly like the jelly had never been sniffed before.”
Byline nodded, and looked up from her notes. “When did you become the head JJPC quality assurance tester?”
“Oh, it was, let me think . . . about twenty years after that jelly-sniffing success. I’d been moving up through the ranks, from jelly sniffer to jam fondler, then later to compote nibbler. Finally I got the big promotion, the one that really made my career, and I became the Western Director of Preserve Preservation.”
“For the benefit of our readers, Jam, can you explain what preserve preservation is all about?”
“It’d be my pleasure, Ms. Byline. You see, the methods for making preserves have changed over the years, and one of the ways they’ve changed is the introduction of preservatives to keep the preserves preserved in Ponyville’s pantries. And the Bureau of Jams, Jellies, Preserves and Compotes has created regulations on the amount and type of preservatives which are allowed in preserves, to safeguard the health of Ponyvillians and also to keep a check on aggressive newfangledness which would negatively impact the flavor or bouquet of Ponyville preserves. In short, our duty is preserving Ponyville’s preserves to protect its perfect piquancy and preserve Ponyville’s primacy as the preserve of proper preserves.”
She stared at Jam a moment, then scratched some notes. “I see. And is it true that the FBIP was your creation?”
“The Full-Body Immersion Procedure? Yes, yes it was. And it’s the thing I’m most proud of in my entire career. The development of the FBIP was a huge leap forward in JJPC technology.”
Byline raised an eyebrow at him, tapping her pencil against the pad as she thought. “Why, though, is the FBIP only performed by you, specifically?”
“Because I’m the leading expert in jams, jellies, preserves, and compotes, Ms. Byline. By immersing myself in the product, I can leverage all my years of experience to evaluate the product’s quality directly, with all five senses. And since I instituted the FBIP 22 years ago, Ponyville has never had a case of food-borne illness from any jam, jelly, preserve, or compote. I take pride in that.” He leaned back with a satisfied smile.
“But, ah, when you’re in the product, what about your, ah, fruits and berries?”
He glanced down and crossed his legs. “Ms. Byline! I’ll have you know that the FBIP has always included a rubber-pants proviso. After all, we wouldn’t want any Jam in the jam, if you take my meaning. Not to mention that the pants reduce friction and help me really get close to the product, really intimate with it. All part of keeping Ponyville safe.”
Byline shuddered. “I think that will be all, Mr. Jar. Thank you again for the interview.”
“My pleasure, Ms. Byline. Have a pleasant evening.”
“And you, Jam.”
Byline walked around the corner and out of sight of Jam’s house before stopping to jot a final note in her pad. “. . .Mr. Jar is strangely obsessed with tubs of jelly.”
Author’s note: The original version of this is from Thirty Minute Ponies’ Prompt #75, “Seven More Days.” The prompt was “X only has one week left before retirement.” I had been feeling that my dialogue needed work, so I challenged myself to use mostly untagged and unattributed dialogue, forcing me to convey emotion strictly with the dialogue. Also I had a very silly idea that worked well as a dialogue-centric piece, so I ran with it.