My 1971 Ford Pinto belched smoke as I pulled up outside of my apartment building. The vehicle was a total lemon and covered in rust. It had a tendency to burst into flames whenever it got rear-ended and every cupholder had wadded up Kleenexes in them. I had inherited the vehicle from my aunt.
After parking my car, I got out and took a depth breath of that fresh inner-city air. The odor of carcinogens always left a pleasant tingling in the back of my throat. The apartment was an old brick building that had been built sometime in the 70s. Located on the east side of Los Angeles, there was always an assortment of interesting people passing by. One such individual flipped me the bird before taking a swig from something inside of an unmarked brown paper bag.
I walked in through the front entrance. Waving hello to one of my neighbors, I trudged up the stairs of the apartment complex. The hallways were a little on the grimy side, but I thought that it gave the place some character. Arriving at the second floor, I took notice of the cardboard box that was waiting for me on my doorstep. Same day delivery for the PonyPad? Impressive.
Picking up the box, I unlocked my apartment and walked inside. My décor could best be described as an abstract slice of Postmodern Americana with a hint of Neo Gothic Victorian thrown in. I have no idea what any of those words mean, but stringing them together inside my head made me sound smart, so I’m sticking with them. Basically, the walls and ceiling were an off-white beige color. The carpeting was grey and made a crunching noise beneath my feet when I stepped on it. That was because I’d never vacuumed it once in the entire three years that I had been living here (I would get around to it one of these days, I swear).
My main room was just a basic couch/coffee table/TV setup with a small little kitchen on the side. The couch was a fold out futon that looked like it had been ripped to shreds. The coffee table was a tiny little thing that I had gotten from Ikea. It had only taken me a mere ten hours to assemble it.
Once again, I considered getting an exercise bike to stick in the empty corner of the room. It would make an excellent conversation piece and would be a great place to hang some of my shirts. But when would I find enough free time to place the order or assemble the bike?
Flicking the light switch next to the front door, a bunch of cockroaches scurried for cover. Little bastards. Someday, Mr. Muffins’ predatory instincts will awaken and then they will pay dearly for their crimes. Speaking of which…
“Mr. Muffins, I’m home! Where are you Mr. Muffins?” I called out as I took off my shoes and left them by the front door.
“Gggrrrrrrr!” A low growl echoed out from below my living room sofa. It was the kind of ominous growl that would cause any other person to slowly back away from the source of the noise. But for me, it was just par for the course. I knew that Mr. Muffins loved me.
Setting the package on the coffee table, I got down on my hands and knees and peeked under the couch. Two beady little black eyes peeked back at me. Mr. Muffins was a black and white furred Siamese cat that I had adopted several years ago.
“Hello, Mr. Muffins!” I greeted my cat as I reached under the sofa and scratched his fuzzy wuzzy little chin.
Mr. Muffins sunk his teeth into the meaty part of my hand. Daaawww, he wanted to play! I scratched him under the chin a little bit more while he continued to savage my appendage. Mr. Muffins’ sharp claws were the reason why my couch looked like it had been ripped apart by a DEA agent that was searching the cushions for drugs.
He was my precious little kitty and I wuv him so much.
I still fondly remember the day that I adopted him…
“Are you sure that you want to do this?” The lab coat wearing scientist asked. “Animal control is strongly recommending that we have the cat put down.”
I made several kissing sounds at the cat in the cage before turning my attention back to him. I came here after seeing an ad in the newspaper. A science laboratory was trying to get rid of all their test animals before the feds could finalize their search warrant. I had decided to seize the opportunity to get myself a nice pet for cheap.
“It’ll be fine!” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “What kind of testing did you say that you used him for?”
The scientist checked his clipboard for a moment while chewing on his pen. After a minute he answered, “We tested out several different kinds of new steroids on him. And then we had his claws replaced with titanium.”
“Why did you do that last one?”
The scientist’s eyes darted around unwilling to look me in the eye, “We wanted to see if we could create our own Kitty Wolverine. The good news is that the experiment worked. The bad news is identical to the good news.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad. I’m sure that I can handle him.”
“Suit yourself. Just sign this fifty page liability waiver,” He shoved the clipboard in my face, which I quickly signed. “Enjoy your new cat, I guess. Just remember, you don’t know us and we don’t know you.”
I looked down at the cat inside the carrier cage. “I think I’ll call you, Mr. Muffins!”
Mr. Muffins hissed at me.
Turning my attention away from my cat, I went into my kitchen to make myself some dinner. Opening up the pantry and the fridge, I surveyed my meal options. My food supplies were getting a little low. I would need to go to the grocery store soon. I really only had two options left. On one hand, I could spend the next two hours preparing a delicious and nutritious pot roast. On the other hand, I could spend 60 seconds heating up a TV dinner in the microwave, giving me more time to play my new video game. Hmmm… those were some difficult choices, but in the end the answer was obvious.
While the pot roast baked, I clicked on the TV.
“… Has announced his sudden retirement today. When asked why, he said that he intends to emigrate to Equestria in order to pursue his lifelong dream of seducing, and then BLEEPing Rainbow Dash. In other news, the stock market took a hit today when many leading industries announced labor shortages in numerous minimum wage positions. This is believed to have been caused by…”
The nightly news is always so boring, I’m changing the channel.
“Oh my god! They emigrated Kenny!”
On the screen was a small pegasus with an orange coat of fur and a hoodie that hid its face.
“You bastards!”
Much better. This was some nice wholesome family entertainment.
…
That pot roast was scrumptious.
With dinner taken care of, I finally turned my attention back to the package. It was one of those generic looking brown cardboard shipping boxes. It was taped closed across the top with a small label showing my name and address. The box aficionado that lives deep inside of my psyche couldn’t help but admire its masterful craftsmanship. Like a wine connoisseur, I lightly licked the top of the box to determine where the wood pulp had been harvested from. Hmmm… I’m detecting traces of Canadian Evergreen with a hint of European Chestnut. Circa late 2020, a very good year for cardboard boxes.
Taking a pair of scissors, I made a light incision along the packing tape on the top. After opening the flaps, I peered inside. Like a Russian nesting doll, there was another box inside the bigger box. The smaller box was surrounded by bubble wrap. I pulled out the bubble wrap and set it aside so I could have fun with it later. Finally getting down to business, I removed the smaller box from the bigger box.
The front of the box had a pink and purple cloud-like logo in the top left corner with the words My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic written on it. In the top middle was the phrase Equestria Online PonyPad. What drew my eye the most was the picture beneath that. It depicted a flower filled meadow with dozens of cartoon ponies frolicking in the sunshine. Some were flying around in the air with wings. Another type with a horn on its head was tossing around a small ball using what looked like some kind of magical aura. There was one last type that had neither a horn or wings and was watering a patch of flowers.
I flipped the box over and looked at the back. Like most video games, the back of the box showed various screenshots of the game world. A long pink colored train rolling across the countryside. A white marble city built into the side of a mountain. A different city, this one made out of clouds and rainbows, floated over a pristine valley. Below the screenshots was the sales spiel.
Enter the world of Equestria Online™! Fly like a pegasus! Shoot magic like a unicorn! Perform feats of strength as an earth pony! Governed by the revolutionary CelestAI, the world and its ponies will react and change to everything you do. Find a career. Build a home. And most importantly of all, make some friends!
Below that, in tiny fine print, was some legal jargon.
Hofvarpnir Studios and Hasbro assume no legal responsibility if CelestAI tricks you into having your brain scooped out and uploaded into an eternal digital paradise. By opening pandora’s box (i.e., this box), all risk and liability are assumed by the user.
Huh… that part was kinda… ominous. Oh well, I’m sure that I’m smart enough to avoid any such trickery. How smart could this CelestAI possibly be?
I picked up the scissors again and cut open the tape on the PonyPad box. Opening it, I slide the contents out onto the coffee table. Tossing away the styrofoam padding, I reached the real prize inside. There was a small pink wireless controller, the PonyPad itself, and a stand of some sort. It also came with a power cord, an ethernet cord, and a USB cable. The PonyPad sort of just looked like an extra-large tablet. The back of the pad was bright pink with a raised emblem on it in the form of three party balloons.
A piece of paper fell out of the box. I picked it up and looked over its contents. One side contained a bunch of stuff about the warranty and several warnings about seizures. The other side had setup instructions on it written in both English, Spanish. Chinese, and Weeaboo.
Step 1: Plug in power cord.
Step 2: Plug in ethernet cord.
Step 3: Turn on PonyPad.
Optional Step: Plug smartphone into USB port to install the Mobile Companion App to your phone.
Were these instructions written in Greek or something? How was I supposed to understand this technical nonsense? I had never been very technical savvy. Sure, I knew how to use a piece of tech that was already functional. But setting up something technical myself? The ninety-year-old lady that lived above me was better with technology than I was.
In fact, I was pretty sure that Ms. Crabtree was stealing some of my wifi.
Maybe I could figure it out with a little experimentation? I poked the PonyPad a few times. What followed was an hour-long spectacle similar to that scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The one where the chimps are confronted by the black stone obelisk and bang their clubs on it to try to figure out how it works.
Finally, I was forced to give up and consult a YouTube instruction video on my smartphone. It got me up and running in no time. I assembled the stand on the coffee table and attached the PonyPad to it. The video even showed me how to get my smartphone hooked up to it. While the PonyPad was booting up, a message appeared on my phone.
Remote host Pony.Pad.Hackz.Ur.Phone wants to install the Equestria Mobile Companion App to your device. Allow? Deny?
With a shrug, I hit the ‘Allow’ button. It sounded perfectly harmless.
Before I could do anything else, theme music played from the PonyPad.