Dan and Pinkie Take a Slice out of Life

by Justice3442

Part 1 Pinkie Vs. Clothes: Chapter 4: Pinkie Vs. Laundromat

Dan and Pinkie trudged down the bright, palm tree lined sidewalk as they made their way to the Laundromat. Dan trudged out of irritation that he had to make the trip and give up his plans of sitting at home and watching TV. Pinkie trudged because she was loaded down with clothes and her pink handbag that dangled around her neck. She stuck close to Dan and scanned the neighborhood nervously.

As Dan and Pinkie passed a fenced yard, a small dog bounded up to the edge and began yapping in a high pitch. “YIP! YIP! YIP! YIP!”

“EEEEK!” Pinkie exclaimed as she hid behind Dan.

Dan stopped and glanced at the dog and then Pinkie Pie. He narrowed his eyes. “Seriously? A tiny dog is all it takes for you to use me as a human shield? You’re lucky I can at least use you as a pack mule, otherwise I’d just sell you into slavery.” Dan kept walking to get away from the dog as Pinkie stayed practically glued to his side.

Pinkie whimpered softly. “I’m sorry Dan, but I’m just not used to everything here! Everything is so noisy all the time! I don’t even know how you put up with it!”

Dan shrugged as his stared off into space, his eyes glazed over slightly. “Living here hardens you a bit… kinda like getting a callus on your foot except the pressures of living here toughens you everywhere… also you’re always just a liiiittle bit dead inside…”

“But… but I don’t want to be a little bit dead inside!” Pinkie exclaimed in a sad tone. She crinkled her brow. “Wait… what’s a callus?”

Dan turned and flung his hands out to his side. “How can you not know what a callus is?!” he cried.

“I uh… come from a different world?” Pinkie offered.

Dan frowned. “Alright, as far as excuses go, that one was pretty good…” Dan sighed. “A callus is when your skin hardens. People who are too stupid to realize there’s this thing called ‘cars’ sometimes get them from traveling on their feet too much.”

Pinkie looked down at her human feet and back up at Dan. “Uh… still not quite getting it… It’s only been a few days since I stopped walking around on hooves…”

Dan sighed.

“Hey! I have an idea!” Pinkie said enthusiastically. “Maybe you can make a ra—”

Dan narrowed his eyes. “If you ask me to make a rap about calluses, I’m going to wait until a car comes by and throw you in front of it!”

Pinkie pursed her lips and thought about this. “But I’m holding your clothes!” Pinkie protested as she shook the bags on her shoulders. “If you toss me into the road they might get ran over too! And then you’d have to carry them to the Laundromat…” Pinkie paused and added. “And uh… me to the hospital?” she added with a hopeful grin.

Dan paused and thought about this. “There is a strange wisdom in your words, stranger horse girl…” he uttered. “Fine! Just don’t ask me to make any more raps about stuff!” He paused and added, “…Why do you keep asking me to make a rap about everything and anything anyhow?!”

“Oh! Well, it’s how I learn and memorize stuff!” Pinkie said. “I mean… how do you learn stuff?”

Dan thought about this.

Chris sat at a plain card table, dressed in his usual outfit of an unbuttoned orange shirt over a blue t-shirt and a pair of khakis. Dan sat across from him. An open box of ‘Questionable Pursuit’ and a setup game board was set between them.

Chris held up a red card and began to read a line off of it, “What famous si—”

“Willie Nelson and Jimmy Carter,” Dan answered.

Chris sighed. “Right again… that’s the fifth question in a row you answered before I even finished… Don’t tell me you have these all memorized.”

Dan chuckled. “Hehe… yeaaaah…”

“Never mind that!” Dan cried. “We’re here,” he said as he and Pinkie walked by a large sign that read ‘24 HOUR LAUNDROMAT’. The two made their way through a small parking lot in front of a small metal building with plate glass windows. The inside of the building was lined with various square machines and bored-looking people who sat near piles of clothes. Dan walked up and held the door open, allowing Pinkie to walk in as she hefted the bags full of clothes.

Pinkie “Ooooh”ed and “Aaaaah”ed at her new surroundings, something Dan was quite used to hearing every time he took Pinkie somewhere new.

Dan walked in and led Pinkie to a large front-facing washing machine. “This will do, pack mule. You can drop the bags.”

Pinkie leaned down and dropped the bags on the floor, then quickly stood up. She stretched her arms out and uttered a relieved “Aaaaaaah!” as small clicking noises sounded from her back.

“Alright,” Dan began, “you load the machine while I go buy some detergent.”

“Oooo!” Pinkie exclaimed. She dug into her rectangular handbag that was dangling off her neck and pulled out a pink wallet. She then pulled a large wad of bills out of that. “Let me pay!”

Dan’s eyes went wide. “Put that away!” he exclaimed in a hushed tone as he put his hands over the wad of bills and glanced behind him. He scanned the building for any unsavory-looking characters who might have seen Pinkie pull out the money then turned back to Pinkie. “Are you trying to get us both shived?!”

Terror quickly erupted across Pinkie’s face and she quickly put her money back in her wallet. “No!” She leaned down closer to Dan and whispered. “Being shived is one of my least favorite things right above being shanked and being stabbed.”

Dan cocked an eyebrow. “You have them ordered?”

Pinkie nodded. “I wrote a song about it since I got here. Wanna hear?”

Dan furrowed his brow. “I'd rather be mauled by a mountain lion and have birds feast on my entrails while I still draw breath,” he replied.

Pinkie sighed and slumped her shoulders. “It’s okay, I need to add something to the song now anyhow…” Pinkie’s expression shifted back to a natural one. “Why would we be shived?”

Dan began speaking in a quiet tone once more, “Because 24 hour Laundromats only house two kinds of people. The desperate, and the truly desperate.”

Pinkie frowned. “Which category are we in?”

“Well, we have luxuries like a roof over our head that doesn’t leak most the time and a toaster that doesn’t shoot sparks… most of the time… so ‘the desperate’.”

“Don’t forget a foosball table!” Pinkie added happily.

Dan’s eyes went wide as he turned and glanced behind him. He noticed a few inquisitive eyes had found their way to him and Pinkie. He turned back to Pinkie with a scowl. “Dangit, pink girl! You can’t just say we have a foosball table! Quick! Mess up my clothes so I look poor and destitute!”

Pinkie looked Dan’s dirt and stain covered ensemble up and down. “Your clothes are already messy-wessy.”

Dan nodded. “Good job, Pinkie. Anyhow, you can’t just say stuff like that! People will think we’re a pair of upper-class yuppies who were forced to come to the Laundromat because our washing machine broke! We’ll be marked as easy pickings for sure!”

Pinkie looked around her soundings in wonder once more. “People own their own washing machines?”

Dan nodded. “And dryers, too.”

Pinkie gasped. “Wow! They must be rich as princesses and princes!”

Dan rolled his eyes. “They’re living the high life alright. They probably have microwaves that don’t require wearing lead vests to operate safely, too.”

Pinkie gasped. “That’s a thing?!”

Dan nodded. “Yeah, it’s a thing. Look! Just start loading clothes into the machine!” Dan commanded as he snatched Pinkie’s wallet, pulled out a 20 dollar bill and handed it back to her. “I’ll get some detergent and some quarters.”

“Okie-dokie-lokie!” Pinkie said happily as she leaned down towards one of the bags.

A sudden thought struck Dan as he walked away. He quickly turned and added, “Oh, and keep your distance as you open the—”

Pinkie erupted into a hacking cough as she opened the bag. “COUGH-COUGH-HACK-COUGH- Oh Celestia! It smells worse than Gummy’s litter box after baked bean muffin day!”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Never mind…”

Pinkie lifted the entire bag and tossed it into the washing machine, electing to pour the contents of the bag in and remove the bag from the machine rather than attempt to handle any of the potentially flesh melting clothes by hand.

Dan came back with a small box of detergent and a handful of quarters.

“Oooo! Let me! Let me!” Pinkie said excitedly.

Dan rolled his eyes as he handed the items to Pinkie.

Pinkie turned to the washer and smiled. She started bobbing her head back and forth rhythmically as she rapped, inserted money and detergent into the machine, and started turning knobs.

You put the money in the slot,

You turn the knob to hot.

I hope my roommate dies and rots.

“Hey!” Dan cried.

Pinkie stopped and turned to Dan. “I’m just repeating the lyrics you made up.”

“Oh, uh… carry on then,” Dan said.

Pinkie continued.

You put the detergent inside,

You set the water level to high.

Then you turn the machine on

And then everything is—

‘HmMmMmMmMmMmMmM…’

“Eeeeek!”

Pinkie dove behind Dan’s back as the machine hummed to life. Dan shot her an unamused glance as she slowly lifted her head from behind him and stared at the machine.

Pinkie raised a finger and pointed at the washing machine. “Is it supposed to do that?” she asked.

Dan rolled his eyes. “Yes, moron.  It’s supposed to do that.”

Pinkie breathed a sigh of relief. “Phew… For a second there I thought the machine was angry that we filled it with your horrible smelling clothing and” –Pinkie brought her hands up to her face and dug her nails into her cheeks— “ was going to get us and swallow us into that horrible mass of dirty clothes”—her eyes widened in horror as she pulled at her face—“where we’d  suffer from the noxious fumes and find a new definition of pain and suffering as the machine used your dirty clothes juices to slowly digest us over a thousand years!”

Dan cocked an eyebrow and simply stared at Pinkie.

“What?” Pinkie asked.

“I’m trying to figure out if I should be upset or impressed you just made a comparison between my dirty clothes and being digested by a famous movie monster.”

“Oooo! Oooo! You can do what I do and combine the words!” Pinkie said with a smile. “How about ‘upressed’!” she suggested.

Dan rolled his eyes. “Oh you’re ‘upressive’, alright…”

“See! You’re getting it!” Pinkie said cheerfully.

Dan grumbled irritably to himself. “Whatever, I’m going to commandeer the TV and watch more crocodiles mauling stuff. You coming…?” Dan trailed off as he noticed Pinkie’s eyes were now transfixed on the washing machine. “What the heck are you doing now!?”

“Your clothes…” Pinkie murmured out as she watched Dan’s laundry slosh about in the machine. “It’s like… like they’re acting out some sort of underwater ballet!”

Dan stared at Pinkie blankly and blinked a few times. “…You need to get out more… or less so the slovenly masses don’t have to deal with your bizarre form of idiocy.”

Pinkie glanced at Dan. “I thought you didn’t like the ‘slovenly masses’. I mean… why else would you call them ‘the slovenly masses’?”

 “Fine, ‘out more’ then!”

“Yay! More field trips into scary land!” Pinkie said excitedly.

“… Riiiight…” Dan turned. “I’m just going to be over here… watching TV… away from you,” he stated as he walked off into the Laundromat.

“Have fun!” Pinkie replied with a wave. She turned back to the washing machine. “It’s alright, Jeanie!” she said as a pair of Dan’s jeans drifted by. “You can do it! I believe in you!”

Dan walked over to a corner of the Laundromat where the bare walls met the windows. A simple looking plastic table with a few plastic chairs were set under an old, square TV that extended out from the wall on a metal mount. A large, gruff looking man with a grizzled brown beard, dusty orange baseball cap, dirty red-and-black flannel shirt, and equally dirty jeans sat in one of the chairs. The man stared up at a TV as a basketball game played on the screen.

Dan reached over for a remote on the table and grabbed it. He quickly switched the TV to the nature marathon he was watching.

“HEY!” the large man cried as he stood up angrily. “I was watching that!”

On the TV screen behind the man, a crocodile dragged a zebra into the murky depths of some muddy African river.

Dan nodded. “And now you’re watching something that will actually benefit you instead of mindless, boring sports garbage!”

“What!” The man protested. “Basketball is a very exciting sport!”

“Oh, that’s like saying ‘red is an exciting color of paint to watch dry’!” Dan counted. “Look! An orange ball gets passed back and forth a bunch of times, it gets thrown at hoops, one team wins, the other team loses. I’m sure some useless sports news show can tell you your team won or lost once my clothes are clean.”

The man shook his head. “I don’t have a team in this game! Members of my fantasy basketball team are playing.”

Dan’s eyes went wide. “Fa…fantasy basketball!?” Dan cried in disbelief. “Basketball is already a sport, and therefore of basically no importance whatsoever! You actually found a way to make it more inconsequential?! Buddy, that might be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard, and I live with her!” Dan motioned past the man across the Laundromat to Pinkie who was busily fussing over the contents of the washing machine.

“No lefty!” Pinkie cried. “Don’t do it! YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR!” She flung her face and hands at the machine. “NOOOOOOOO!” she cried as she slid down the front of the machine. She followed this up with a soft, sad murmur, “Nooo... nooo…”

The bearded man glowered down at Dan. “Change it back or this is going to get ugly!”

Dan grinned and motioned out with an index finger. “Ugly like that stupid hat on your head, or ugly like that thing hanging off your beard?”

The man paused and looked attempted to look down at his beard.

“Oh my mistake,” Dan said as his grin widened. “That’s your face.”

The large man’s face darkened. “Oh, you’re in for it now…”

“Just a sec,” Dan said as he held out his hands. “Let me call my idiot roommate over.”

The man gave Dan a confused look. “What? What does she—”

“Hey, idiot!” Dan shouted out. “Get over here!”

Pinkie said nothing as she continued to watch the washer intently.

“MORON!” Dan cried.

“…”

“PIIIIIINKIEEEEE PIEEEEEEE!” Dan roared.

Pinkie turned. “Yes, Dan?”

“Why didn’t you respond when I was calling you earlier?!”

“Well, how the hay was I supposed to know you meant me when you called out ‘idiot’ and ‘moron’?!” Pinkie exclaimed. “You call everyone that!”

 “Whatever!” Dan shouted back. “Just come over here!”

“But Dan,” Pinkie cried out in a protesting tone as she motioned to the washing machine, “I’m watching the unfolding drama of your clothes play out in the magic of the washing machine!” She pointed at the machine. “You see, one of your right socks and t-shirts clearly have feelings for each other, but don’t know how to express themselves! And every time they get close together, something tears them apart of gets in the way! It’s like some sort of external force is purposely toying with their and my emotions for its own twisted amusement!” Pinkie clutched her fingers into fists and held them up by her chin. “It’s captivating and maddening at the same time! Maddivating!”

“Uh… how long is this going to take?” the large man asked.

Dan sneered up at the man. “I’M WORKING ON IT!” He turned back to Pinkie. “IT’S LAUNDRY!” he cried as he flung his hands out in frustration. “It doesn’t have interesting storylines or unexpected plot twists.”

Pinkie sighed and shook her head. “Poor, naive, Dan… You just can’t see the deep, well-crafted story because society's cultural norms have blinded you from finding joy in things not originally intended for your demographic.”  

“What…?” Dan cried and confusion. “Stop being weird and get over here… or at least just get over here!”

“FINE!” Pinkie huffed out as she walked over. “What is it?” Pinkie asked as she approached Dan. “OH!” she exclaimed as she noticed the large man she was waking toward. “Erm… Hello big, scary-looking man… Were you going to turn me into your plaything?” she asked simply.

The large man stared blankly at Pinkie. “I…uh… what?”

“Pinkie, don’t talk to creepy guys at the Laundromat!”

“Creepy?!” the man cried in protest.

Dan reached into his pocket, pulled out a quarter, and flicked it off his hand with his thumb onto the ground in front of Pinkie.

‘Kachink.’

“Now pick that up!” Dan commanded.

“Okie-dokie-lokie!” Pinkie said as she bent down to pick up the quarter.

The large man couldn’t help but stare at Pinkie as the pretty girl in the pink dress bent down to pick up the quarter.

Dan quickly moved himself so the large man was between him and the plate-glass window. Dan shifted his weight back then leaned forward and pushed the man in front of him with all his might. The distracted man quickly toppled backwards.

“Aaaaaaah!”

‘Krrrrssshriiiiiiiish!’

Glass shattered and went everywhere as the man fell through the large window and hit the pavement on the other side.

‘Thump!’

Pinkie bolted upright, quarter in hand, and looked from side to side. “What happened?!”

Dan smiled and put an arm around Pinkie’s shoulder. “You were useful!” he said as he pointed to Pinkie with his free hand.

Pinkie’s mouth exploded into a happy smile. “I was?!”

Dan nodded up and down. “Yep! Now if you don’t mind, I have some hapless mammals to watch get eaten by dangerous swamp predators,” Dan announced as he sat in one of the chairs arranged in front of the TV.

“Sure, Dan!” Pinkie replied.

A pained moan drifted in from outside the broken window. “UuUuUuUuUuUuUhhh…”

Pinkie glanced outside and cringed. “Dan! I think this man needs medical attention!”

“And I think you need to shut up and watch things get eaten by crocodiles with me!”

Pinkie’s eyes went wide and her lips pulled open into a grimace as she looked down at the man outside then back to Dan, then back and forth a few times. She turned to the man lying on the cement. “Sorry… but I really want Dan to like me…” she uttered. She turned and bounded up to a chair next to Dan.

Dan smiled as Pinkie sat next to him. “You’ve made a wise choice.”

“Thanks!” Pinkie said. “Anyways, I kinda like crocodiles! They’re like a big version of my pet back home! So what’s getting eaten?”

Dan chuckled and pointed to the screen. “A horse.”

Pinkie looked up briefly as her pupils shrank to pin pricks. “EEEEEEEEK!” she shrieked as she covered her face. “Sweet mother of Celestia! What’s wrong with this place?!”

“Well, if you aren’t up for watching this you can always get me a soda from the vending machine,” Dan said.

Pinkie uncovered her face and grinned pensively. “Oh, right!… A vending machine. A machine that vends. A machine that specifically vends… things…”

Dan sighed and shook his head. “Start beatboxing!” he uttered in an exasperated tone.

“Yay!” Pinkie exclaimed as she flung herself and her hands up excitedly.

Dan watched as Pinkie’s chair fell backwards with Pinkie in it.

“WHAAAAA!”

‘Thud!’

Dan peered down at her. “Uh… Are you okay?”

Pinkie responded by putting a fist to her mouth. “Boooom-pssssh-boom-boom-bopsssh! Boooom-pssssh-boom-boom-bopsssh!”

Dan stared up at the ceiling grumpily.

You hunt for the rectangular machine that says ‘Soda’ on the front…

Which you’ll feed quarters to, you infuriating bit—

“HEY!”