Pokey's Holiday (or Trixie's adventures in Bureaucracy land)

by Talon and Thorn

Tuesday - Hard cider

Tuesday

Trixie was awoken by a loud knocking sound. Who’s calling this early? She thought as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes. With a groan she turned over and looked at the clock, Horse apples! I overslept, I knew we should have finished earlier last night. It might have saved me some bits to.

Grumbling Trixie levered herself out of her warm and comfortable bed and staggered down the stairs to the office while trying to tame her bed mane, “Hang on, I’m coming,” she yelled rushing to the door.

She pulled open the door, “Sorry Ditzy, I overslept.” On the other side of the door was a unicorn stallion with a Brown coat and close cropped black mane wearing the uniform of the Equestrian Postal service. “You’re not Ditzy.” concluded Trixie.

“Sorry to disappoint,” said the stallion, “I’m her colleague, Ball Lightning. There are a few mailponies off sick at the moment so we’re a bit mixed up. Do you mind if I come in?”

“Of course not,” Trixie stepped aside. The mailpony walked in levitating a set of mailbags behind him in addition to those on his flanks.

“Another bumper load for you today I’m afraid,” he emptied both sets of bags onto the floor they flew around in his telekinetic aura for a while before they were quickly stacked into tidy piles. Trixie was somewhat impressed, although she tried not to show it, few unicorns could normally carry that much or manipulate that many objects at once. “Normally we’d do two loads but you're not too far from the post office so I figured it’d be quicker to do it this way.” he looked around the office, “Any outgoing?”

Trixie blinked blearily at the new towering piles of paperwork, There must be hundred’s here, she thought, I’ll run out of forms before the new order arrives at this rate. I can’t lose those bets. “Can you hang on a minute?” she asked, “There’s coffee in the Kitchen if you want any.”

“Well, I..” began Ball, ignoring him Trixie turned tail and rushed down into the basement.

Quickly searching through the form rack again the blue mare picked out another form ordering form and started to fill it in, Express delivery this time and let’s say 500, no 750 forms that should tide me over until yesterday’s order gets here. She rushed back up the stairs and her still drowsy brain cells gave a cheer as she smelt coffee. Ball was just exiting the kitchen with a steaming mug of liquid caffeine, he passed it to her. She took a gulp and sighed. “I needed that. Aren't you having any?”

“I’ve got to go.” Ball looked awkward for a moment, “Sorry about gran yesterday, she told me what happened, she’s getting a bit... senile,” he looked down sadly ears flat, ”She even told me she saw Princess Luna here. Thanks for dealing with the bill. I told her I’d do it but she wanted to prove she could do it herself.” he sighed and trotted towards the door. “Anyway, see you around.” he left carrying the empty bags behind him.

Trixie sat for a moment looking into her coffee cup, “I don’t think I deserve this now,” she said to herself. Then took another sip of the drink, there was being penitent and being stupid, not starting the day with coffee was the latter. She finished her drink before putting down the cup and going to make herself presentable.

****

Trixie worked hard for the rest of the morning and the early afternoon dealing with both the huge pile of paperwork and the occasional visit from the locals. She only stopped briefly for dinner and even then she ate at her desk.

To be honest she was starting to miss Pokey already, and not just for someone to help with her workload. It was nice to have someone to talk to in the office. As it was the room felt very big and cold.

Come mid-afternoon she had made a serious dent in the mountain of forms probably over half of them had been completed and neatly stacked ready to be sent off to Canterlot. She was just about to dive back into the remaining paperwork when there was a soft knock on the door. “Come in!” she yelled.

The door opened and a huge red stallion entered the office. “Afternoon Miss Trixie.” said Big Mac.

Trixie eyed him warily, she didn’t entirely trust the stallion and although she wouldn’t tell anyone she felt a little intimidated by him, there was just so much of him. “Good Afternoon Big Mac, what can the Great and Powerful Trixie do for you?” she replied, instinctively dropping into the third person.

Mac smiled, “Well I don’t know about the Great and Powerful Trixie, but Representative Trixie can process this here alcohol licence for the Trust.”

Trixie vaguely remembered Pokey saying something about this but not the details. “Why do you need an alcohol licence, you holding a party up there?”

“Nope, we're gonna be selling this year's stock of hard cider, it's been fermenting all winter. Should be a good batch.” He trotted over to her desk and produced a thick wad of paper as well as a large bag of coin.

Trixie took the coins and forms and quickly flipped through the latter, “This only covers a week is that going to be long enough?”

“We normally sell out fairly quickly, anything left gets shipped off to head office anyway. Can I put you down for any?”

Trixie sniffed, “No thanks, Cider’s not really my drink.” A thought struck her, “Why are you here anyway, doesn’t Applejack normally deal with most of this?”

“Well Applejack doesn’t really believe in hard cider. Oh she’ll have a nip sometimes when it’s cold or she feels under the weather, but she thinks it’s a waste of apples that could be used to feed hungry ponies. It’s a big seller so the Trust wanted it organised by a family member so it was me, Granny or Bloom. It’s a bit too far for Granny to come and well Apple Bloom drinks enough of the stuff that I wouldn’t trust her with the paperwork.”

Trixie stared at the large red pony in shock.

His face broke into a large smile, “That was a joke, ‘course we don’t let Bloom at the Cider, although she’s getting mighty curious about the ‘Big Pony Drink’. We don’t want her to get a mark in vomiting.”

Laughing somewhat uneasily Trixie wrote out a receipt for the money and flicked through the forms again, “You left this a bit late for next week but I see you’ve marked fast processing so I’ll get it out special delivery today. It should be ready if you come back on Friday.”

“That should be just fine, we don’t sell till next week anyway. Thanks. See you then.” Giving a bow the giant stallion left the office leaving Trixie alone with her paperwork again.

With a sigh Trixie put the application aside while she moved the payment into the office safe. Then she slumped back into her seat and started on the pile of forms again.

****

Trixie continued to work hard all afternoon encouraged by the thought of winning the bet with Cheerilee and Carrot Top. By the time her supply of forms was almost exhausted the pile of work left seemed to have shrunk to a manageable size. All she had to do was bag the letters and get them over to the post office. She looked up at the clock and swore, several hours seemed to have disappeared, she’d missed the last post. In fact the post office would be shut by now, she could ask Derpy to let her in but she didn’t want to impose. Still it wouldn’t hurt to let it wait for a night, then she remembered the pile of work from yesterday. Out of sight, out of mind had been right, she’s completely forgotten about it. Not only was it a further pile of letters to post but it was more unfinished work as well.

Looking around the room the piles of work seemed to crowd around her whispering of failure. How could Luna let her into the night court if she couldn’t deal with the paperwork generated by a single small town? Looking for a way out her eyes alighted on her hat in its place on the stand by her desk. It could be used to make half of the work here disappear, literally as if by magic. It was supposed to be only used in an emergency but this felt like one to Trixie.

She quickly penned a note to indicate that this load should be sent to the administrative centre and then spent almost half an hour dumping load after load of envelopes into the hat and watching them disappear. With the room emptier she felt like she could breathe more easily. There was still a few piles of uncompleted work but she had exhausted her supply of tax forms so there was little she could do until the requisition arrived tomorrow. Quite proud that she’d saved so much on postage she hung up the magic item.

It was several hours after her normal closing time and she felt she’d spent too much time inside already so the blue unicorn decided to go for a jog around town. She’d been trying to get fitter for a few months now, given the amount of time she was spending running from various creatures it seemed a good survival trait, and she was beginning to see some benefit. The exercise went some way towards clearing her head but left her tired. She grabbed a quick supper and spent a few hours practicing some hoof eye coordination skills. Her grandfather had always told her to juggle for at least an hour a day to keep her hooves limber. Eventually she called it a night and went to bed. She hoped that tomorrow would be easier than today.

Comments

[Walabio]

> “it’s a bit too far for Granny to come and well Apple Bloom drinks enough of the stuff that I wouldn’t trust her with the paperwork.”

¡Drinking hard cider definitely explains the crazy stunts the CutieMarkCrusaders try for getting their CutieMarks!

[ShadowLDrago]

3572952

Eeyup.