Chapter 4 – A Strange Lunch Break
You are sitting in the passenger seat of Pinkie Pie’s car as she drives you to the mystery lunch location. You look out the window and see several restaurants and fast food places pass by, places you would find yourself visiting if you had not agreed to go with her. Whatever this place you were going to, it had to be good. Your experience with her has been relatively great. Sure she does act very much like, well, Pinkie Pie, but you find that way she talks or acts is actually tolerable rather that annoying. It’s only the first day though, and you know to really get to know someone you have to spend more time with them.
You are about to try and talk with her to get to know her more.
“Ooo! You want to listen to some music,” she says suddenly, destroying your chance of talking with her.
Before you can react she pulls out a CD, one that it looked like it was burned on a computer, and putting it in turns up the volume. Immediately a happy tune blares on the radio, one that you’d expect to be playing during My Little Pony or something you’d hear at a kid’s birthday party. Suddenly Pinkie starts singing to the happy sugar coated tune. You realize that talking to her now will be impossible and you don’t want to interrupt her having fun, so you just sit back and listen to her sing in a voice that reminds you of when Pinkie Pie sang the Smile Song.
It is surreal as you look over at the girl driving you to lunch. While you absolutely like Pinkie Pie from the show and would have no problem being friends with someone who had even a small percent of Pinkie’s happiness or energy, you can’t help but dwell on how uncanny this girl is to the cartoon character. She is the exact image of what you would expect if Pinkie Pie from the show somehow crossed over into the real world and became a human. The chances of anyone getting the exact aspects of a cartoon characters physically, mentally, and emotionally are hard that getting struck by lightning or winning the million dollar lottery. But as she sitting next to you, you see that to every odd there is always that one thing or in this case person to break the odds.
You can only think about two scenarios as to what is going on. You already threw out the idea of having a strange dream or a hallucination as you knew this was too real to be an illusion. The first possibility is that this girl is some obsessed fan. You’ve seen fans on MLP sites trying to do the voices of characters or dressing up as a pony for a convention. This was the tame side of fans liking the show or a certain pony. But then there were the few who were in extreme. You remember once a girl who was on a forum you were on who swore she was Princess Celestia. Everything she wrote was not something a typical girl would write but that of the Princess of the Sun. At first it was cute, but then she began to demand people worshiping her. Eventually she was banned for harassing the others, but the memory of her still lingered.
A sudden fear gripped you as you wondered if this was the same case with her, that she was so wrapped up in Pinkie Pie that she decided to abandon her normal self to become her. She seemed harmless enough right now, but you wonder what would happen if something snapped and she went insane. She might become upset or worse hurt herself or others. You wonder if even getting in the car with her would be a good idea.
There was another possibility, one that was farfetched but still there in your mind. She could be a living breathing laughing human version of Pinkie Pie. This was way out there in your mind as you knew, sometimes to your dismay that My Little Pony was just a cartoon. There were times that the world was like that of Equestria and the characters from the show appeared in some form. There was part of you that wanted to believe that the girl next to you was actually Pinkie Pie, but to do so you had to reject everything you knew about reality.
“We’re here,” Pinkie said suddenly, jarring out of your thoughts.
You step out of the car and look at the stores in front of you. It is a typical collection of places, anchored by a big box store. There’s a craft store, a bank, and a big building at the end called the Mega Chinese Buffet. You begin to walk to the buffet, thinking that Pinkie took you there. Buffets you’ve found were very dicey, either being really good or really bad, but if Pinkie liked it, you guessed it was ok.
“Hey, where are you going,” you hear and turn around to see the pink haired girl standing there with a confused look.
“Oh I thought we were going to the Chinese Buffet,” you say to her.
“No silly, I only go there Thursday nights when it’s half off day. Plus I need a good three hours to get the full buffet experience. We’re going here for lunch.”
You look over where she’s pointing to. To the right of the big box store there’s a store front that looks like the shape of a castle. In big letters the sign reads: Pat’s Pizza and Party Plaza. You wonder what kind of a place would be named that or why Pinkie would be interested. You follow her into the door and are greeted by a strange sight. The inside of the store is decorated to look like a rainbow exploded inside, covering the walls and floors with color. In the back is a huge play structure made of big plastic colored tubes that twist and turn in all directions. One tube ends in a big roller slide while another ends in a ball pit. Near the front is a huge video arcade with a dozen or so blinking machines begging you to play them. On the right is a little eatery where Pinkie is leading you to.
“Um, Pinkie? You know this place is a kid’s party place right?”
“Yeah isn’t it great! It’s kind of quiet now but during the weekends it’s a blast! But the real reason I brought you here is for the pizza. It’s the best pizza in the town.”
Realizing that it’s useless to argue with her, you go up to the counter. Pinkie orders one of the personal sized pizzas to which you order the same. You then take a seat and wait for the order, taking advantage of the time to ask her some things.
“So, your name is actually Pinkie?”
“Yep, well actually it’s Pinkamena Diane Pie, but I like being called Pinkie. Plus, it’s kind of hard for people to remember my full name.”
“It just I’ve never heard someone called Pinkie, and I thought it was your nickname.”
“Nope, that’s my real name!”
“It’s just funny that your name is Pinkie and I’ve seen you with lots of pink things.”
“Oh you mean the car? Yeah I love pink! It’s such a happy color! Don’t you think pink is a happy color?”
“Yeah, I guess. So why do you like it at this place?”
“Well, the pizza is great and I like the games here. But I come here because I like seeing others happy, and that’s what this place is for. ”
The pizzas arrive and you take the time to see how good they really are.
“Hey, these pizzas are really good.”
“See, what I told you, ”Pinkie said before diving into another slice.
The two of you eat your pizza and enjoy talking with each other. Pinkie even asks you questions about you, although they’re strange like “What’s your favorite type of frosting” or “do you like kumquats?” You guess it’s her way of trying to find out more about you. Both of you are trying to figure out each other, testing to see if the two would get along outside of the bakery. You find that the more you learn about Pinkie Pie, the more you like about her. Your fear of getting to know someone who you are thinking has a great obsession of a cartoon character is quickly being melted away.
“Oh, it looks like we have to get back now,” Pinkie says as she gets up, “The cakes won’t bake themselves!”
You exit the Pizza Palace and follow her to the car, your mind thinking that maybe there is a possibility that you can actually be friends with your pink haired coworker, maybe even more.