Vinyl Scratch counted the bits she had saved up. According to her calculations, she had just enough to get what she wanted. For the past few months, the little filly did as many chores as she could around the house while juggling her schoolwork. Vinyl had even taken up odd jobs here and there from her neighbors without her parents knowing. She did everything and anything. Nothing was too much for her to handle.
And nothing would stop her from getting what she wanted.
The next day, instead of going home after school, she went to the optometry. It was fancy inside, and pretty empty. Eyeglasses of all shapes and sizes were on display in glass cases. A grumpy unicorn with a pair of eyeglasses for a cutie mark, sat up front, his hooves up on the table as he read through a tabloid. After several minutes with struggling with the door, Vinyl finally mustered enough strength with her weak unicorn magic and her hooves to push open the door, ringing the shop doorbell.
“Welcome to–aw no, not you again!”
“Huh?” Vinyl cocked her head. She had been making weekly visits to the shop, checking out different styles of glasses and frames before finally settling on the one she wanted.
“Are you finally gonna buy something, kiddo? I might hafta start charging you just for looking,” chuckled the optician.
Vinyl Scratch gave her trademark grin and nodded happily. “I’ve got enough this time!” She held up her wallet and shook it for him to see.
“You know which pair you want?”
“Definitely!” She pointed her hoof at her prize on the top shelf where the designer sunglasses were. “The pretty one, with purple lenses!”
“Of course.” The unicorn chuckled and levitated the special pair out, floating it down to the expectant filly.
These sunglasses were a special kind of glasses that lacked any stems. They basically clipped onto a pony’s nose bridge.
“You want anything else?”
“Can I get it with custom lenses?”
“Do you have an old pair?”
“Yeah,” she replied, handing him her old pair of glasses.
Everyone at school teased her about her black round glasses with their ugly thick frames. But as much as she hated her glasses, the thing she hated the most were the color of her eyes. Grownups were too nice to say anything, but they probably thought there was something wrong with her. Foals, on the other hand, didn’t have any problem with telling her that her eyes bothered them.
“That’ll be a hundred bits.”
“WHAT?! You said they were seventy bits!” she shouted, enraged. She jumped up onto the counter and towered over the unicorn. “Are you trying to rip me off?”
“Custom lenses, kiddo!” the optician said. “They don’t come cheap, you know.”
Vinyl sighed and jumped back down, slumped over, her ears drooping low. She didn’t have enough to spare. She shut her eyes and bit her lip, her eyes stinging as tears sprung to her eyes. All that hard work and she still didn’t have enough.
“I’ll come back next month,” she said glumly.
The old unicorn sighed. He was too old for this. “Wait!”
She turned around.
“Your old frames are still in good condition,” the unicorn fumbled with his words, “so I guess I can give you a little discount if you ‘sell’ them back to me.”
“Really?!” Vinyl gasped.
“Sure.” He smiled. “I’ll even tint these lenses for you for free.”
“Wow! Thanks, mister!”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t mention it.”
She started to count out the bits she would need before the shopkeeper swiped the exact amount needed, scraping it into a cash register and locking it.
“That’ll still be eighty-five bits, though.”
“Cheapskate.” She stuck out her tongue.
“You betcha. Come back later and I’ll have them done by then.”
Vinyl left the shop, walking out into Ponyville, losing herself in the crowd of much taller, meaner looking grownup ponies. She suddenly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to examine her reflection. She needed a haircut, badly. Her mane was an absolutely impossible sticky mess of white clumps that made her head look like a cotton ball. Once, she recalled, she tried to run a comb through disaster of a mane and lost it. Normally she would go to someplace cheap, like Pegasus Cuts, but even she couldn’t pay them enough to even try working with her mane. She finally stopped in front of the salon and peered through the window. It was dimly lit and had weird velvet furniture. She could hear some music that was in desperate need of some more drum and bass. A pretty earth pony with the craziest hairdo she had ever seen was sitting at the desk, looking bored out of her mind. She spotted Vinyl Scratch and waved her in. Vinyl took a few tentative steps into the salon before she was suddenly whisked off her hooves into a chair. She got a much better look of the interior of the place. Scented candles were everywhere. She managed to come to a conclusion:
This place was weird.
“I assume you are here to be styled?” she asked Vinyl.
Vinyl nodded stiffly, nervous.
“You’re very lucky, you know,” the pony told her as she began setting up the hairdresser’s station, “All her appointments just canceled.”
“Okay.”
“Look who I’ve got for you today!” she called to the back room.
A voice squealed hungrily. “Let me get my hooves on this one!”
Vinyl was sure she was going to die.
The desk pony spun Vinyl in her seat.
“Egad!” The prettiest unicorn Vinyl had ever seen (too much makeup though) shrieked in horror and collapsed dramatically. “The horror! The horror!”
“Is she gonna be alright?” Vinyl asked, raising an eyebrow.
“She does this from time to time. But I have to agree. Your mane is a disaster, honey.”
“Thanks,” Vinyl replied lamely.
“We shall operate immediately!”
Operate?
Vinyl gulped. “I’ve changed my mind, I’m leaving!”
A cape was wrapped around Vinyl’s neck, nearly strangling her.
“Dahling, we simply must fix your mane.”
The way the hairdresser drew out the word “darling” reminded Vinyl of her rich aunts from Canterlot.
“It’s no good for getting a coltfriend.”
Vinyl blushed. “I don’t want a coltfriend...”
She gave a haughty laugh and began to work. “Any preference? Any particular style?”
“I dunno. Cool, I guess.”
“’Cool’. Hmph. Not very specific. Vinyl Scratch, why don’t you take a look in this book and tell me which one you like while I go get some drinks?”
None of these styles suited her. They were too old or too much or too normal. She needed something that stood out! She turned the page and saw it.
“I like that one!”
“Hm?” she trotted over. “Oh my. I’ve never been asked to do this one before.”
Was it a bad choice?
“I love it!” she shrieked, turning to the desk pony. “She really does have style and flair!”
Vinyl flushed again and suddenly asked, “Uh, miss? What about color?”
“Color? White is a very nice color, dahling. Very rare, I must admit, for someone so young.”
You’re telling me.
“I want it blue.”
“Blue?”
“Electric blue with streaks!”
“How unique!” she gushed. She clapped her hooves together, the lights dimming and the music growing louder. “Let’s do this!”
“Are we done yet?”
“Vinyl Scratch, dahling, you cannot rush perfection.”
Vinyl was getting bored. The last time she had her mane done, she got out in less than fifteen minutes, though that may have been due to the fact that she had been threatening the barber with his pair of scissors. The unicorn had spent the last few hours putting these weird conditioners and shampoo and washing her hair over and over and styling it and putting foil in Vinyl’s mane and tail. She had no idea what it looked like. This was taking forever! And forever was like, a really long time! Maybe if she could reach a hoof out and change the music. She was in some serious need of electronic music.
“It is DONE!”
Vinyl jumped and spun in her seat, facing the mirror. Her jaw dropped.
“WOW!”
She stared at her reflection. Vinyl Scratch could hardly recognize herself.
“So? What do you think?” she asked.
She broke out into a huge grin. “It’s PERFECT!”
Her mane was now much, much shorter. It flowed like silk and bobbed with her head. Now she could headbang in style! It was spiky and cool and swooped exactly where she wanted it and a little short in the back. The colors were striking and bold, with a darker blue as the base of her hair and electric streaks running through.
The desk pony cheered. “Isn’t it amazing what foals are doing nowadays?”
“Truly independent.”
Vinyl got up to pay.
The desk pony told her, “Fifty bits!”
Vinyl’s jaw dropped. She only had fifteen bits left. She meant to pay only seventy for the glasses and maybe thirty for a nice styling. Now she owed,
“FIFTY BITS?” Vinyl’s heart raced. She began to sweat.
“Is there something wrong?”
Was she shrinking? Thoughts raced through her head. Was she going to jail? Or worse? To the dungeon? Princess Celestia would probably banish her, and then lock her in a dungeon! What if they made her parents pay?
In that case, she would rather take banishment and the dungeon.
“Vinyl Scratch, dahling. It’s quite expensive here, isn’t it?”
She nodded numbly.
“How about I take those bits off your hoof,” she said gently, “and you can pay off the rest.”
“Okay,” Vinyl stammered. “Thanks a bunch, miss.”
What time was it?
Oh, shoot, she had to get home! Her parents were going to kill her!
…Well, they were going to kill her anyway...
“Don’t call me miss, dahling! It makes me sound old!”
Vinyl trotted as fast as she could back to the optometry. This time, she practically kicked open the door.
“Hey kiddo, your glasses are done–WHOA HEY!”
The filly jumped up and grabbed the glasses with her mouth and quickly ran off. “’ANK ‘OU!”
Don’t break them, don’t break them...
Vinyl stopped outside her house and panted, taking slow, cautious steps to the front door. Maybe her parents weren’t home yet. She turned her glasses in her hooves, examining the quality of the tinted purple shades. The lenses were shaped in a way that made her look like an alien. She placed her new sunglasses on her head, letting it hang on her stubby horn.
It was still dark inside when she walked in.
“Whew!”
The lights suddenly turned on, revealing that both of her parents had, in fact, come home from work, and were lounging in the living room.
Vinyl screamed.
“Are you going to tell us why were you were out so late?” Hoity Toity asked. When he saw her mane and tail, he uttered, “Oh.”
Her mother gasped. “Vinyl Scratch! What did you do to your mane?!”
Aw, horseapples.
“You look like a delinquent!” her mother admonished as she began to attempt to wash the dye out from Vinyl’s hair to no avail.
“I do not! I look cool!” Vinyl protested before having her newly styled mane scrubbed furiously. “Ow! Mom!”
“Blue hair! No daughter of mine is going to have blue hair!”
“It’s not the worst thing that she’s ever done, honey,” soothed Hoity Toity.
“What will ponies think?” Photo Finish wailed.
“They will think I look cool!”
“Is this permanent?!” her mother screeched.
“Nah. I’m gonna get it retouched in a couple months...”