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// 01. Pinkie Pie 
// Story: You's Bed And Bath For Ponies 
// by Listie The Scribe Maid 
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Brought to you in part by the
OH TO BE DUMB AGAIN, DEPT.

Gah... I suck at baths! I thought to myself as I looked down at the mess I had made. A third of the water was on the floor, it was a bit warmer then it should have been and it was the color of oatmeal. How does one even do that? I sighed and tried again. This time, I was more careful, so better results. For one, it wasn't oatmeal flavored. It could probably bathe a pony. I wasn't gonna test it myself, Faust no, I was just gonna put the pony I was looking after in.

"Oi! Pinkie, it's time for your bath!" I called out to the pink pony in question. When there was no reply, I, obviously, tried again: "Pinkie, really! Get in here!"

I was never the most patient pony in the world, I should probably say right now. So two was my limit when it came to calling Pinkie. At that point, I decided to go out and find her. The last place I saw her was the kitchen I had installed into my installation, so I tried there first. Luckily enough, Pinkie was there... With one of the dolls I had gotten. And a knife. And some ketchup. Y'see, she had cut open the doll and poured ketchup over it, like blood. Odd.

I cleared my throat and Pinkie gave me an oddly innocent look.

"You need a bath," I told Pinkie bluntly, "and you really shouldn't have knife. I don't think it's safe."

Pinkie looked at the knife, then at me, still holding that mockingly cute look. And, I just noticed, her mane was pretty damn flat. On one side, at least. The other side was pretty poofy. I don't think it's supposed to be like that.

"Yes, I said 'you'," I said, hoping that's what the look meant. "In any situation, that would mean-"

But before I could finish, Pinkie had already squirted some ketchup onto the table top and wrote "No" in it. I think. Maybe she meant "oN".

"Yeah, you might say 'No', but I'm the one in charge here," I reminded the pink pony before picking her up and bringing her into the bathroom. I dropped her in- Or at least I thought so. When I looked down, nopony was in the bath. "Sonuva..."

I ran back out into the kitchen to see Pinkie continuing her... Operation, I guess. And she was really covered in blood this time.

"C'mon, Pinkie, don't make me do anything I wouldn't want to do," I muttered, picking her up once again and making a more rapid progress to the bathroom. For some reason, she was still in my hooves when I dropped her into the tub. Finally. But I blink once and she's besides me! Maybe I shouldn't have spent all night working on legal papers to open this place... Well, if I didn't, I wouldn't be here, would I?! Thought so.

So, for the third time, I picked Pinkie up and put her in the tub. Wasting no time, I grabbed the shampoo (and the brush) and squirted some in Pinkie's awfully ketchup-y hair, scrubbing it in a little. Pinkie giggled a little from the tickling sensation (I prayed most of the foals I looked after would have more-or-less the same reaction) and splashed a little water. If I didn't know any better, I would have swore that she was trying to get me wet. But I have fur that's gray, why do I care? Also, that shampoo was smelling good. So... Fruity, I think. Whatever shampoo smelled like. I couldn't resist taking a deep breath of it, closing my eyes. I quickly regretted it when I felt a drop of water on my head.

I opened my eyes, looked up and was shocked. Pinkie had somehow telepor'd herself onto the shower bar and was swinging around on it. I quickly grabbed her and scolded her: One, because she could have hurt herself and it would have to come out of my pay. And second, I didn't have me camera near me! I could have totally sent it to Equestria's Funniest Home Videos. If she'd fallen, I could have won the grand prize.

At the time, I was pretty sure something else was going to go wrong, so I just dumped some water on her to clean all the shampoo out. It did and the poofy side of Pinkie's fell flat. But, to fix it, Pinkie stuffed her hoof in her face, tried to blow out and that side poofed up again.

"Why only that side?" I asked her. "Why doesn't the other side go up? Some kind of chemical balancement or something?"

Pinkie shrugged and babbled something I could understand. I don't think it mattered anyways, so I moved onto her tail. I told her I was going to do so, so Pinkie plunged her head underwater, letting her rear go above the water so I could wash the tail. Well, I didn't really expect her to do that... OK, I kind of did. But I wanted this bath to be over with, so I finished her tail and dumped water on it to clean it out. The poofy half went flat again, but, like the mane, it went right back.

I expected Pinkie to come up then, but she didn't. I waited for about two minutes and nothing.

"Uh, Pinkie..." I muttered. "You can come up now."

Immediately after I said that, Pinkie launched herself into the air, did an impressive number of flips and landed sitting in the tub, grinning as wide as the hills.

"I give you a thousand points," I said.

Pinkie nodded in satisfaction and I have her a boat and a little yellow submarine to play with. I think she's deserved it. I mean, she just got a thousand points. I supervised her, of course, but did I really need to?

She (Pinkie) continued her childish role play for a little while (humming "Hey Bulldog", I think) before taking the submarine and forcefully submerging into the water, making a big splash. None got on me, but I looked away for a brief second in fear that it might. When I looked back, Pinkie was gone... AGAIN!

I thought about going straight in panic-mode, but I turned around and saw her holding a towel in her mouth. Always one step ahead, I guess.

Well, her bath was officially done at that point, I guess. Pinkie was definitely done, so why bother arguing? I took the towel out of her mouth and dried her off, somehow making the poofy part poofier and the flat part flater. The flat part was already as flat as bucking paper, so how I accomplished this is beyond me. Once I was done, Pinkie ran out to finish doing whatever she was doing with the doll and the ketchup. Hopefully she'd be putting them away, 'cause I didn't wanna wash her again.

Afterwards, I drained the tub and, as it was, I was leaning over the side of the tub, consider what I just witnessed. Would this come from all the foals I watched? Was I really cut out for this job? I sometimes considered becoming a doctor or something, but I knew nothing about medicine, so why would I bother? I also thought about being a cook, but I knew nothing about cooking either. So don't you expect me be feeding or giving medicine to any of these foals. Or going to war... Well, to be perfectly honest, I do feed them and stuff. It's just, y'know, you came here for the bed and bath stuff. If you want medicine and such, go somewhere else.

Then I realized something.

"Pinkie! Don't you dare murder the dog!"

LATER...

I looked at the old clock on the wall and noticed it was almost time for bed. I breathed a sigh of relief. My service would almost be over! So I quickly went off to the room Pinkie would be sleeping (not my room) and made sure everything was to her, ahem, "standards", which meant balloons tied around the four posts of a bed with only one bunk. Did I mention? I technically have 4 beds: One for myself, a single bunk and a double bunk bed. I was all set.

Anyways, I made sure the sheets, since there was no other way Pinkie would sleep in it, and it looked at least presentable. It did, so I walked over to the doorway and started looking for the elusive pony. Then I remembered that she was probably hiding or something, so I called her: "Pinkie, it's time for bed! I don't a repeat of the bath situation, so get in here!"

A couple seconds later, I was tired of waiting, so I went to look for. Since the kitchen was the place I found her during the bath situation, I tried there first. Pinkie wasn't there, nor was the doll or ketchup. There was stuffing on the floor that Pinkie tried to bake, but, aside from that, she was nowhere to be found. At that point, I heard giggling from the bedroom and groaned. I knew where she was.

Slowly going into the bedroom, I saw that Pinkie had somehow made a World War II fortress entirely out of pillows. Right down to the insignia. Girl should've been an architect.

Moving on, I cleared my throat. Pinkie popped her head out of a corner of the fort, wearing a helmet nonetheless, and I said, "Young lady, it is bedtime. I am tired of dealing with you, so could you please, for once, just do what I want?"

Pinkie shook her head no, almost flinging off her helmet. She dived back into the fort and started bouncing again, I guess, because it kept creeping.

Sighing, I went over to the bed-fort-thing and lifted up a corner, hoping to find her. Instead, I found the business end of Pinkie's party cannon. And when her ends mean business, my Faust, do they mean business. I quickly dived and there was a loud explosion of confetti, probably waking up one of my neighbors.

The pink party pony popped out once again, giggling at the fact that she almost blew my Faust dang head off. I felt especially insulted when she started picking confetti out of my hair.

"OK, enough messing around," I said, taking Pinkie off my back and shaking my mane free of shredded paper. "Can you please calm down? Please?"

Pinkie took a minute to think it over. Eventually she nodded and I was relived. I put her down and quickly dismantled the pillow fort, some of them disappearing into thin air. That at least confirmed that I didn't have 27 pillows in this establishment. After I was done, I put the party cannon into a corner, much to Pinkie's disappointment. Not like I cared how her weapon of mass fun-struction turned out. I picked her up once again and tucked her in, Pinkie sighing in content in such. Thank Faust that's over, I thought to myself. Now I could go watch Mystery Science Theater 3000!

I quietly made my way out and shut the door without a sound. Seconds later, I opened to door the check if she was still there. She wasn't. I ran over to the bed to see if she was there and, sure enough, she wasn't. For I think the 7th time that day, I felt like panicking, but I didn't went I felt that Pinkie was clinging onto my head, trying to stay silent.

"Now, what did I say about being calm?" I asked Pinkie. She didn't reply, but I anyways said, "You said you would calm down. Which you didn't. Look, you want a story or something?"

That seemed to be a deal maker, because Pinkie leaped off my head and onto the bed, trying to stop her bounces. Ignoring that, I went over the book shelf I had, which I stocked with books I knew my clients would like. I didn't really think about Pinkie, but there was suddenly a book wrapped in brown paper with a bow the color of my fur. I admit, it was kinda cute for her to do that, but I wanted to finish this.

I grabbed the book and unwrapped the wrapping. I was surprised to find out that it was entitled A Nice Baking Story. Sounded innocent enough. And the cover clearly clarified that it was a story with pop-ups. Hopefully, the pop-ups would wear out her brain power.

I sat down in a chair next to the single bunk bed and Pinkie went over to the edge of the bed so she could see it better. I opened the book's first page and, like the cover, it was innocent enough. As stated on the cover, it was a pop-up picture. But I still had to move the book closer to Pinkie so she could see. I turned to the next page and I instantly knew why she wanted it: It was really dark and disturbing. But Pinkie liked it, so I moved on, letting her pull on the pull tabs. Strangely enough, it made it even worse.

The book got progressively darker and darker. I couldn't exactly stop because Pinkie seemed to be enjoying it, seeming to get more and more excited as the end got closer. I got closer to puking, but that's a different topic all together. So, anyways, I got to the penultimate page of the book and I was just about ready to give up. But Pinkie urged me to turn the page and I did- Which resulted in blood being splurt all over the room, especially in my face. I was pretty dang annoyed by it, but the lil' filly looked happy. I couldn't stay mad at her for long, can't I?... Maybe.

I quickly closed the book, put it away on the shelf and tucked her in. Heck, I even gave her a hug. She smiled at me and hugged me back.

After that was done, she fell asleep and I quietly made my way out of the room. But, before I closed the door, I heard her giggle. I checked to make sure she hadn't gotten up, but, no she was still sleeping. With the same smile on her face. And I was glad. Mainly because I was about to watch Mystery Science Theater 3000. But, y'know... Still glad.