LCS: Minimum Wage Conquers Unemployment
When Aria and Sonata pushed open the door to the apartment, they weren’t sure what they were expecting. Adagio making out with her boyfriend, or worse, was a possibility. A sarcastic “welcome home” was very likely. A genuine greeting, while doubtful, was certainly within the realms of reality. The two had been gone for two and a half weeks, after all, and even Adagio would have to admit to missing their company. So, it would stand to reason the Adagio would be happy to see the newly weds.
You can imagine their surprise when they saw Adagio sitting in the middle of the floor, surrounded by a million or so sheets of paper and muttering crazily to herself.
“We’re having a house meeting,” said Adagio, not looking up from her paperwork. Aria looked to her wife, then to Adagio, then back to Sonata before kicking to door closed and setting down their suitcases.
“What’s going on?” asked Sonata.
“Oh, and Cuba was nice, thanks for asking,” grumbled Aria. “We didn’t catch any horrible diseases, and I bought you a nice bottle of rum.” Adagio glared at her intensely for a moment.
“Sit down,” she ordered.
“Fine, let this be the last time I bring you a souvenir.” Aria and Sonata sat across from Adagio and waited. Their leader looked over her papers one more time before looking up and addressing them.
“While you two idiots were busy getting tans and consummating your marriage, I was looking over our bank records,” said Adagio. “And I noticed that our savings were a bit on the low side.”
“So? Didn’t you say you had assets to liquidate if this sort of thing happened?” asked Aria impatiently.
“Yes. So I went to do so. Then I realized that I had sold all our stock already. Then I went to our other accounts.” Adagio pinched the bridge of her nose. “To make a long, depressing story short, we’re just about out of money.”
“Out?” said Sonata blankly. “As in, no more?”
“Broke. Destitute. Penniless,” said Adagio. “Bankrupt. Behind the 8 ball. I don’t know how else to say it, Sonata. We have basically no more money.” Aria blinked audibly about six times before putting her words together.
“Alright, I’m not gonna lie, I don’t listen to you most of the time,” said Aria. “So there’s a good chance my memory is bad. Stop me if I’m wrong. If I recall correctly, about 90-something years ago, I said to you ‘what’s to stop us from running out of cash again’, because we had just gotten out of the Great Depression. You said to me ‘don’t worry, I have a plan that will prevent us from ever running out of money, ever’.” Aria waited for someone to correct her, nodding grimly when nobody did. “See, I thought so. But I also remember me trying to ask you a bunch of hypotheticals, to which you replied with…”
“‘Do not worry, I will handle it’,” said Adagio through gritted teeth. “‘We will never, ever run out of money, ever’. Yes, that is what I said. However, the circumstances were different.”
“Different how?” asked Sonata.
“Because that was back when the three of us were single and didn’t actually have to eat food.” Adagio got up and started pacing, trampling her paperwork. “Now, between your wedding, my dates with Silver, and all the groceries we have to buy, we’re really low on cash.”
“How low?”
“We have enough cash, right now, to support our current lifestyle for another three months,” sighed Adagio. “Now, with my job at the music shop, I can cover rent and some of the groceries. But, if you are like me and enjoy electricity and running water, I am going to need someone to supplement our income.”
“Wha?” asked Sonata.
“She means one of us has to get a job,” growled Aria. “Which means me.”
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” asked Sonata. “You don’t think I can hold down a job or something?”
“No, that’s not it.” Aria thought on it for a moment. “Well, it’s true, you probably couldn’t keep a job. That’s not the point I was trying to make, though.”
“Then why do you have to get a job? Why can’t I get a job? You don’t trust me to-”
“Shut up for a sec, will ya? I shouldn’t have to trust you to bring money in,” said Aria. “That’s my job. You’re my wife. You shouldn’t have to work. What kind of a man can’t provide for his family?”
“You’re not a man,” noted Adagio. “Not that I am aware of, at least.”
“Look, being a man has nothing to do with biology. Being a man is about doing what you have to do to make the people you love happy,” said Aria. She stood up and crossed her arms. “It’s about respect. It’s about protecting your family so that they don’t have to worry about anything.”
Sonata looked to Adagio for some form of guidance, of which she got none. Neither of the Sirens had ever seen Aria like this. Just seven years ago, a short seven years, Aria would rather die than say something that deep and heartfelt. Even if she always did feel this way, she never would’ve said it before now. An amazing transformation, indeed.
“Wow. You really feel that way?” asked Adagio.
“My wife works when she wants to,” said Aria firmly. “Not when I need her to. I’ll talk to Button, he might have a job for me at the comic shop.”
And that was the end of it. Any attempts from Sonata to convince Aria that she could get a job were shot down immediately. There was no changing it: Aria refused to let her wife bust her butt just so they could keep a roof over their heads. It was wrong, no matter how Sonata tried to justify it.
As such, Sonata and Adagio had no choice but to watch in respective horror and amusement as Aria underwent the Tartarus-like process of filling out a job application. Unfortunately, Button’s shop had no openings, so Aria had to do things the hard way. Being a several-century old Siren wasn’t as beneficial to the process as one might think.
She was turned down at the local grocery store, as they assumed she was joking when she gave her date of birth (all these years, and people still had trouble believing their origins). The movie theater believed her, oddly enough, but said she lacked the patience or people skills to work in any sort of customer service (A fact she only proved by swearing and angrily threatening her potential employer).
And so, Aria began looking into work that required her to interact with people very rarely. She considered working at a storage warehouse near the south of town, but the man who ran it was a sexist homophobe. He’d give her a job, but it was clear that Aria would punch him in the jaw before the week was up. She thought she found a good one in a butcher’s shop, and was very nearly done with the interview process. She would’ve started working that day, if she wasn’t informed that she’d also have to behead, debone, and descale fish (which, for whatever reason, was really popular in Canterlot City). This was a firm deal-breaker, and Aria barely made it out without throwing up.
The Friday of the week of job-hunting was when Aria had a breakthrough. Sunset had decided that the group hadn’t hung out in too long, and took it upon herself to remedy that fact. The Sirens, the Rainbooms, and Crystal Prep Twilight were all at Sunny’s house, drinking, talking, laughing, and generally having a good time. Adagio had brought her Wii U, and a bit of a drinking game broke out involving Mario Party 10 and a large bottle of tequila. Sunset and Aria, who had the misfortune of being designated drivers, were the only two that weren’t totally plastered. It was lucky that the group had some sober members, because when pizza inevitably ran out, there was someone who could go order some more.
Aria followed Sunset out the side door of her house and to her garage. Sunny, who apparently didn’t feel like driving, chucked the keys to Aria and hopped into the fire-red convertible. Aria was about to follow suite, but stopped herself upon seeing a similarly red motorcycle.
“Hey, that yours?” asked Aria.
“The bike? Yeah, I got it a while ago,” said Sunset. “I don’t ride anymore, though. It’s more fiscally responsible to just take the bus to and from school.” Aria nodded, as she considered buying herself a motorcycle in the past. She rode years ago, but hadn’t since long before she hooked up with Sonata. Maybe it’d be nice to get back into it.
When the two arrived at the local pizza joint, they saw something that solved all of Aria’s problems. As they walked out with their stacks of pizzas, Aria noticed a sign in the window. She grinned slightly.
“Hey, Sunny,” she said. “How much do you want for that bike?” Sunset tilted her head in confusion, which resolved itself when Aria gestured to the sign in the window.
Delivery Drivers Wanted!
“It’s all yours,” said Sunset.
Aria originally didn’t want to get a job, but, now that one was within her grasp, she felt significantly better about it. It’d be good for her to get out of the house and become an active, productive member of society. Maybe having a job would be fun.
“Ma’am, do you know why I pulled you over?” asked the officer. Aria ran her hand through one of her pigtails in frustration.
“Well, I wasn’t speeding, I don’t have any blood on my hands, so…” Aria said sarcastically. “No. I have no earthly idea why you pulled me over. But you know what? I bet you’re gonna tell me anyway.”
“Your hair, ma’am. It’s too long,” he said. “It almost got caught in your tires.”
“Fascinating. Can I go now?”
“You may certainly not. This is a serious issue. You are a danger to yourself, and a danger to others.”
Aria was about to state the the only person she was a danger to was him if he didn’t let her go, but then she remembered that threatening cop is four years, easy.
“I’ll be sure to get it cut,” grumbled Aria. “Is that all, sir?”
“Mind if I ask what’s in that bag?” asked the officer. Aria looked back to her steaming thermal pizza bag and couldn’t stop the smart remark from leaving her mouth.
“Well, let’s see. A thermal bag, a motorcycle driven by a chick in full Marco’s Pizza uniform, heading in the opposite direction of a Marco’s Pizza…” Aria clicked her tongue. “Well, I thought it’d be obvious. It’s seventy pounds of pure Columbian cocaine.”
“Ma’am, please step away from the bike,” ordered the officer.
“You cannot be serious right now. Dude, it was-”
“Step off of the bike with your hands up. Now.”
Aria begrudgingly kicked out her kickstand and stepped off of the box. She glanced at her watch, wondering how much longer she’d be held up. She had finished her deliveries for the day, luckily, but Sonata and Adagio were expecting her back by 9.
“What was the point of that?” asked Aria. “Look, I have a date, and the missus is-”
She was interrupted when the cop slapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrist.
“Name,” he said.
“What?! You can’t arrest me! I didn’t do anything!”
“What’s your name?” repeated the officer.
“Aria Blaze, but I swear to God, you can’t-”
“Aria Blaze, you are under arrest for possession of a controlled substance. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
“I know the Miranda Rights! I was alive to see that case!” snapped Aria. “You can’t arrest me!”
As it turned out, he could, and he did. Adagio and Sonata had to drive down to the station and pick her up. On the bright side, it wouldn’t go on record, and the officer would probably be reprimanded for his unnecessary excitement. Still, Aria was livid, her mood not much improved by her two companions.
“If you would’ve let me get a job, you wouldn’t have gotten arrested,” noted Sonata.
“I’m about to get arrested again,” growled Aria. “For murder.”
“You two are both idiots. Shut up and think about how to proceed,” said Adagio. “When I said someone should get a job, I didn’t think you’d get a minimum wage high school job.”
“It’s better than nothing,” said Aria. “Fine. If it’s like that, I’ll quit, and then you can use your connections to get me a real job. So sorry for doing my best, Master Adagio, I’ll try not to disappoint next time.”
Adagio groaned in annoyance. Aria’s employment was supposed to cut back on the frustration, not add on to it.
“Hey, did you get the pizza?” asked Sonata. Aria glared at her wife with fire and fury enough to dwarf the sun. The rage Aria poured out of her eyes could be damaging to the soul.
“No,” said Aria dryly. “I didn’t.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.034 seconds
Total duration
1,042 users online
1,578,566 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
6747445 Sadly, the complexity of reindeer economics makes this but a dream for most of us.
6747818
It is
That was... an interesting chapter. Again, funny. Liked seeing Aria try and hold job down and was realistic in why she didn't get the jobs.
Also, I loved the little mentions on the Sirens age, like the Miranda case joke, they really make me laugh
6748629 I find myself laughing way too hard at my own jokes, particularly that one. Glad you enjoyed.
6748634 I know what you mean XD
Sarcasm....can get you anywhere, even in jail, Aria
6749878 I can never refrain from saying something sarcastic like that when faced with a stupid question, It's one of the many things I have in common ith Aria.
6750312
Hey there are no stupid questions...... only stupid people.