“Permanent Vacation”
Surprise!
After the events of last night, most of us were dragging ourselves home. Man, I feel sorry for Applejack and Fluttershy, having to walk all that distance just to get home. Anyway, after I got up, I figured that today is a day to unwind and get to work on putting that bed I bought together. It does look pretty nice outside though…
“Since when have we ever been the outdoor type?”
“Since we came to this world and can actually talk to friends in real life?”
“Alright, fair point.”
Grabbing my iPod and a pair of headphones, I throw on my white and blue striped jacket as I step outside. Around me, ponies are cleaning up their decorations from last night. Sucks to be them, I cleaned up my decorations last night. I put the headphones over my ears and plug them into the iPod as I walk towards the local park directly across from Town Hall. Unable to decide on a song, I pick one at random and set the rest to shuffle. Along the way, I wave to some ponies that know me.
The park itself is actually pretty nice. Dirt paths lined with flowers snake through the trees as birds fly around. Directly in the center of the park is a large fountain depicting three ponies, one of each race, facing away from a pedestal with the sun on it. Around the fountain, there are multiple benches. Off to the right is a playground currently teeming with children as their parents sit off to the side and chat with each other. Finding an empty bench, I sit down and just enjoy the world around me.
“Alright, I’ll agree that this is pretty relaxing.”
“It’s not like you had much of a choice in coming or not. I mean, you are a voice in my head. Where I go, you go.”
“True, true. But I could annoy the shit out of you the entire time.”
I feel a light tap on my shoulder. I look to my right to see Twilight sitting on the bench beside me, motioning with her hands to take my headphones off. Doing that, I say, “Nice day to be out in the park.”
Twilight nods her head. “Indeed it is.”
“So,” I turn my head to look back at the fountain, “what can I do for you?”
“Don’t you mean, what can I do to you?”
“Are you ever going to stop with that?”
“Nope!”
“Well, the girls and I are going to meet up today at Sugercube Corner. Would you care to join us?”
“What time? I got a project I wanted to get started on back at the house.”
“In about an hour. We should only hang out for an hour or so.”
I glance down at my iPod. It’s elven forty-five. I look back over at Twilight “Alright, I’ll be there.”
“Good! See you within the hour!” Twilight stands up and walks away. Something about the enthusiasm in her voice over me just coming to a get together… There’s something she isn’t telling me. Either way, I should enjoy my alone time now. Then I can find out what she’s hiding.
The hour passed by in peace. I might as well get to this meeting. Rounding a bend in the road, I see Sugercube Corner. As I walk towards it, something about it seems… Off. Normally, the lights would be on and the window blinds open but now, the exact opposite. Ah well, just pass this off to some weird thing Pinkie is doing.
“Oh shit! Our number came up! You’re on your own!”
Reaching out for the door handle, I swear that I see one of the blinds move ever so slightly. Opening the door, I step into complete darkness. Suddenly, the lights kick on and I’m blinded. As I blink my eyes to get some vision back, I feel my headphones slide down to my neck. I hear a jumble of people yelling surprise. Just as I get my vision back, it is replaced with an overwhelming amount of pink.
“So, are you surprised?! Are you?! Huh, are you?! Areyouareyouareyouareyou?! You have to tell me if you are!” Pinkie yells in my face, so close to it that all I see are her blue eyes.
I push Pinkie away from me and smile while I stop my iPod. “Yes, Pinkie, I’m actually surprised. But may I ask what this is for?”
“Well, duh! You got to throw your party, but I never threw my “Welcome to Ponyville!” party for you!”
I glance past Pinkie to see the rest of the girls, Spike, the Crusaders, and some residents of the town smiling and waving at me. The entire building is decked out for a party with streamers, confetti, tons of food and drinks, and balloons, including a banner that reads Welcome to Ponyville, Blake! “Thanks guys!”
“So, you ready for the mostsuperawesometastical party of your life?!”
“Are you kidding? I was born ready! Fire up the jukebox!”
The party kicks off and my first destination is the food. Thank you, Pinkie, for making tons of cannoli’s.
“Are you ever going to get tired of food?”
“Are you ever gonna stop making sexual innuendoes?”
“Not in my end, but in your end, oh!”
“Seriously?” I look at Pinkie to see her shaking her head in disgust, “Even Pinkie thinks that was terrible!”
“Well, I can only work with what you give me so cut me some slack!”
Eager to get away from this conversation with myself, I wander around the party, talking to ponies, eating food, and generally enjoying myself as the jukebox blasts Neigh-Z (I should really figure out what bands they have in this world), Pony-Crue, and original songs by the one and only Vinyl Scratch. Of course, that fun has to end when the jukebox suddenly shuts off.
“Hey, who turned off the music?!” I hear Rainbow yell.
I see Twilight walk over and push a few buttons on the jukebox. “Nothing is happening when I try to change songs. I think it might be broken.”
“Broken? These things never break! What they really need is a good,” Rainbow flies over and kicks the jukebox, “Kick!”
I push through the crowd and put a hand on Rainbow’s shoulder. “Whoa there, Fonz. Let the IT guy handle it.”
“And what are you gonna do?” Rainbow asks, crossing her arms across her chest.
I smirk. “First thing they always teach you when becoming an IT guy.”
“And what exactly is that?” Rarity asks.
I wrap my arm around Twilight. “Actually, I’m gonna see if Twilight can figure this out. So, Twi, put that massive brain of yours to work and tell me, how would you fix this?”
Twilight puts a hand to her chin and looks up towards the ceiling. “Well, I’d first take off the panel covering the wiring, and then I’d—”
I shake my head. “Twilight, I’m very disappointed in you,” I walk away from Twilight and head to the back of jukebox, “For not checking the obvious thing like, oh, I don’t know, seeing if it’s plugged in?” Bending down, I grab the power cord lying on the ground and hold it up. Twilight sheepishly rubs the back of her head while a couple ponies chuckle at her.
I plug the cord back into the outlet on the wall (Note to self, check what items in this world use gems and which use hydroelectric power) and the jukebox powers back on to the cheers of everybody. “Really?” Rainbow raises an eyebrow at me, “That’s all it took?”
I cross my arms across my chest. “Hey, you’d be surprised how many times the uneducated masses complain about something not working to people like me, only to tell them to check if it’s plugged in,” I throw my hands out, “Lo and behold, that’s their issue.”
Applejack chuckles. “Heh, looks like somepony is trying ta give Twilight a run for her money in smarts.”
I smirk. “And give her a challenge I shall.” Twilight blushes while the rest of us laugh. The party resumes without a hitch and we spend the next hour and a half partying.
After saying goodbye to everybody after the party ended, I head straight for home. Now to get to work on building that bed. Throwing my jacket on the floor, I drag the box into the spare bedroom and clear out enough space for me to work. Opening the box up and spreading the contents on the floor, I find the instructions. Let’s see here… First order of business is to put together the headboard. Step One: insert tab A on pillar A into slot B on pillar B.
“That’s what she said!”
I groan. “Do you really have to do this?”
“That’s what she said!”
“I’m probably gonna regret this, aren’t I?”
“Most likely. Also, that’s what she said!”
“I…” I tap my chin.
“Think about it…”
I smirk. “So, how was your day?”
“…Fuck you.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
Two hours later…
I have to say, this bed fits the room. The Wonderbolt design matches the sky blue walls and light hunter green carpeting perfectly. Satisfied that my work here is done, I toss the trash over by the front door and make myself a dinner of grilled cheese and split pea soup. Having nothing better to do, I decide to see if I get any TV stations here. Sitting down on the couch and grabbing the remote, I flick on the TV. Static, at first, gives way to the weather channel. Good to see that I at least get the Equestrian channels.
“And here we can see that, due to the low pressure—”
Yawn. Flick to the next channel.
“How much is it for this beautiful, hand crafted work of art? Well—”
If I had any money, I sure as hell wouldn’t spend it on that piece of garbage. Next.
“Come on down to Crazy Dave’s Wacky Wave Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Stallions—”
This seems familiar… Forget it. Next.
“Coming up next on Neighsey Shore—”
Ah, hell no! I freaking hate this show! Seriously, I’d rather watch PBS or that shopping channel!
“Forget this. The channels here suck. We have to find out what good shows are out there first.”
“True, but what do you propose we watch instead? I do have tons of DVD’s.”
“I don’t know about you, but, I wanna live close to the sun.”
I stand up and head over to my DVD’s, pulling out the only season of the show to be released in the U.S. “Well pack your bags cause I’ve already won.” Throwing the first disc in, I sit back down on the couch and watch one of my favorite shows to ever be on TV.
Two hours later…
I just finish the halfway point of the season when I hear a knocking on the door. “Coming!” I yell out as I stand up and head for the door. Opening it, I see Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Vinyl Scratch on the other side. “Well, what brings you three around here?”
“Ya wanna come drinking with us?” Applejack says.
“What?” I say, somewhat surprised with how forward she is.
“We’re heading across town to the only bar in Ponyville. You coming or not?” Rainbow says.
“Dude, play your cards right and we could—”
“Don’t finish that thought.”
I glance down at myself. “Sure, why not? Just give me a second to turn everything off.” Rushing back inside, I turn everything off and throw my dirty dishes in the sink. Throwing my shoes on, I step outside as we head for the bar.
“Oh man, this is gonna be so awesome!”
Our walk through town leads us to the more clustered part of it. “So, who originally found this place?” I ask.
“I did. When you’ve been a DJ for as long as I have, you tend to learn where all the good bars are,” Vinyl replies with a wave of her hand.
“And this has been our hangout ever since,” Applejack says.
“We’re here,” Rainbow stops in front of a regular old building.
“Uh, it doesn’t look like a bar. Should I question how much you’ve already had?”
“Hey!” Rainbow turns around and jabs a finger into my chest, “I’m sober!”
“At least, for now,” Vinyl says with a smirk on her face, causing Applejack to snicker.
Rainbow glares at Vinyl while Applejack turns to me. “Berry Punch lives here, so she built the bar downstairs,” Applejack walks over and steps between Rainbow and Vinyl, “Now come on you two. We got some drinking ta do.”
With some grumbling on Rainbow’s part, we head into an alleyway on the right side of the building. A dark purple and red glowing neon sign hanging above a little stairwell leading down into the building tells me that the place is called The Drunken Pony. Rainbow heads down the stairwell and opens the door, stepping inside with Applejack, Vinyl, and I right behind her.
I glance at the room around me. Booths and tables, some currently occupied, sit in dim lighting cast by electric (Or hydroelectric, in this case) lamps. Off to the left is a massive bar with a giant mirror behind it. Hanging around the mirror are shelves with nothing but bottles of booze, some opened and others not. Directly across from the door on the far wall is a stage with what looks like a karaoke machine. Heh, might get some fun out of that later tonight. To the left of the stage is a pool table. They better not challenge me to a game of pool, because they’ll definitely lose to me. The walls look pretty barren, with only a few posters promoting alcoholic beverages here and there.
Being half pulled by Vinyl towards the bar, each of us slides out a stool and takes a seat, Vinyl and Rainbow on my left with Applejack on my right. A cerise maned, pale mulberry mare wearing a black t-shirt, blue jeans, and a black apron tied at the waist walks in front of us, leaning on her side of the bar. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite customers. I see you brought a friend for tonight’s festivities,” She says with a slight smirk on her face.
Applejack slaps me on the back. “Yup, this here is our newest drinking partner, Blake. Blake, this is Berry Punch.”
I hold my hand out. “Charmed.”
Berry returns the handshake. “Likewise. So, what can I get for the four of you?”
“Start us off with the usual,” Rainbow says, sliding some money towards Berry.
“You got it.” Berry ducks down under the bar and comes back up with four mugs. Walking over to one of the taps on the bar, she fills up each of the mugs with a golden, frothy liquid. She then walks over and sets a mug down for each of us. “Enjoy.” She walks to the other end of the bar and proceeds to help another patron.
I raise my mug up. “To friends drinking. May we live long and prosper!” We all clink our mugs together.
Bringing the mug to my lips, I can faintly smell apples wafting from the drink as I swallow. When they said drinking, I thought they meant something stronger than hard apple cider. Downing my first mug, I glance over to Applejack and see her wiping her lips with her arm, the now empty mug in front of her. The sound of mugs hitting the bar tells me that Vinyl and Rainbow just finished theirs. Applejack waves over Berry.
“Done so soon? You three must really want to put on a good show for Blake.”
“Nah, we just wanna get to the good stuff faster,” Rainbow says with a wave of her hand.
“Then I take you all want another round?” Berry says as she collects our mugs.
Rainbow starts to reach into her pockets but Applejack beats her. “Ah got this one, Rainbow.” Applejack reaches into her pockets and slides the money towards Berry.
Again, Berry fills up the mugs and returns them to us and again, we down those in record time. Before somebody can beat me to it, I call Berry over. “Yo, Berry!”
“Yeah?” She walks over in front on me, “Another refill already? Looks like somepony is getting lucky tonight,” She smirks as I glance over toward my friends to see them blushing slightly. Well, save for Vinyl, who is smirking and nodding her head. Berry goes to grab the mugs but I stop her.
“This is some good stuff, but I was expecting something stronger than this. Especially from you three.”
“This is only the opening act. The real show will start soon enough,” Vinyl says.
“Well, the opening act is over. I’m buying the next round so I can show you three what a real drink is,” I turn towards Berry, “You ever hear of an Alabama Slammer?”
Berry shakes her head. “No, I’ve never heard of such a drink before.”
“That’s saying something, considering this mare knows almost every form of alcohol and mixed drink out there,” Vinyl says, earning nods from Applejack and Rainbow.
“You do realize that they might not even have the kind of drinks we’re looking for, right?”
“Are you kidding?! Just look at the amount of alcohol in here! Look, right over there is a bottle of Southern Comfort! Speaking of which, how do they have Southern Comfort on this planet?”
“Who cares?! We found booze!”
“Alright, I’m gonna need Southern Comfort, amaretto, vodka, gin, and orange juice.” Berry grabs each drink as I list them off, placing the items before me.
“Alright, what’s next?” Berry seems eager to discover this new drink judging by the way she is unable to stand still.
“In a pitcher,” Berry reaches under the bar and pulls one out, “mix equal amounts of each drink, shake well, serve over ice, enjoy, in that order.”
Berry gets right to work pouring the bottles, but not without a little show of her spinning the bottles, tossing them in the air and catching them, etc… After pouring each drink, she places a lid on the pitcher and vigorously shakes it. Deeming it satisfactory, she pours some into a shot glass and hands it to me. “Taste it. Let me know if it tastes like it should.”
Grabbing the shot, I raise it in the air and say, “Bottoms up!” Tilting my head back, I swallow the shot. Oh boy, does that hit the spot! I shudder as I bring the shot glass back down on the counter.
“Well?” Applejack asks.
“Perfect! It’s exactly like I remember it, tasting like fruit punch!”
“Now this I gotta try!” Berry obliges Rainbow’s request, pulling out four more shot glasses. She pours one for each of them, including herself, and slides them their shot. Once everybody has theirs, they all hold their shot up, tilt their heads back, and down the shot.
Vinyl slams her glass on the bar, shaking her head. “Wow! It’s exactly like drinking fruit punch!”
Rainbow is the next one to finish. “I could drink this all day!”
Applejack slams her glass down. “Well I’ll be. Never thought a drink could have that much alcohol and not taste like it!”
I turn to Berry, who is just finishing her shot. “So, what do I owe ya?”
Berry smiles. “After this?! For you, drinks are free from now on! On one condition though, you let me sell this and don’t tell anypony else about how to make an Alabama Slammer.” Berry holds out her hand.
I smile. “You got yourself a deal!”
“Great!” Berry hands me the pitcher, “I’ll just leave this here with you guys. If you need more, you know where to find me! Thanks again!”
Rainbow slaps me on the back. “I knew it was a good idea to bring you along!”
“Thanks for inviting me! Now come on,” I pour another shot for each of us, “Let’s drink to us getting free drinks for the night and to me!” A small cheer is quickly silenced by the sounds of us four downing our second shot.
“So,” Rainbow glances at each of us, a slight smirk on her face, “Who’s up for round three?”
“Oh, I can see where this night is going!”