Before Closing

by Rambling Writer

5:49 PM - Money

Aegis bounced the ball on his hoof (magic-proofed to keep him from cheating), then rolled it up the alley. It hit the ramp at the end and went soaring up towards the 100 pocket. I thought it would go in for once, but it bounced off the rim and rolled down to the 10. Again.

“Stop aiming for the 100,” I said again. “You’ll only hit the 10 hole if you miss. If you can’t hit a hole with consistency, aim for the 40. If you screw up on that, you’ll at least hit the 20 hole, and you might even hit the 50 if you’re lucky.”

Aegis cocked his head at me and frowned. “Are you doing that on purpose?”

“Hey, you started it, with your talk of putting balls in holes.”

“Sweet Celestia, don’t remind me,” Aegis muttered with a facehoof.

We were in a temporary arcade, with lots of dinging noises and flashing lights. It was more than a little disorienting at first. We’d passed by some skee ball lanes, a few of which were still open, and after maybe half a femtosecond of prodding from Aegis, I’d caved. I liked skee ball. I was terrible at it, but I liked it. So now we were, as Aegis had innocently put it, putting balls in holes. Well, he was at the moment. We kept switching off; he’d play a game, I’d play one, back and forth. Right now, it was his turn, I was watching him play. He only had a few balls left, though; it’d be my turn in a moment.

He fished the next ball from the slot. “But, really, it’s all about physics. You just need to know how to roll the balls right, and…” Roll. Bounce. 10.

“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Because that’s working out so well for you.”

“Quiet.” Aegis went a bit slower with his next ball, looking at it and the alley. “You know, how come carnivals rig their games so much? There’s everything you pointed out to me, and probably more.” He started preparing to throw his ball. “And then there’s stuff like the rope ladder, where there’s a secret, but it’s a really secret secret.” He rolled the ball. It didn’t come anywhere close to the 100 pocket and rolled right down to the 10. “Dangit.”

“Skee ball isn’t rigged, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I never said that, I s-”

I smirked. “You’re just jealous my scores’re consistently better than yours.” Yes, I’m terrible at skee ball. Aegis managed to be even worse. I didn’t even know such a thing was possible.

“Of course I am. But that’s my fault, not the game’s.” He rolled again and actually managed to get a 20. “But it’s almost like everything at a carnival is rigged. Why?”

“Money.”

“…What, just, that’s it?”

“Yeah. Money,” I said, shrugging. “What’d you expect?”

“I dunno. Something a bit more sophisticated than just ‘more bits’.” Roll. 10.

And that was it for Aegis’s balls. (I didn’t do that on purpose.) We swapped out and I put a bit in to start the game up again. “This place is a business. It’s meant to make money.” I pulled out a ball. “Ergo, it gears its attractions towards making money.” No sophisticated stuff like ‘aiming’ and ‘judging your throw force’ for me; I just went and threw the ball haphazardly. It earned a 20. “They offer prizes to draw people into the games, but they can’t give away too many prizes ‘cause those cost them money.” I took the next ball. “So they rig the games to keep people from winning prizes. People keep playing, money keeps coming in, prizes go out at a much lower rate.” Roll. 20.

“That seems kinda cynical,” Aegis muttered.

“It’s the truth. All these bright colors and family-friendly atmosphere?” I waved a hoof around. “Marketing. It’s all meant to look welcoming and draw you in so you can spend your money.” Roll. 10.

“So, what, you’re saying that carnivals just want your money?”

“Well, technically, yeah, that’s true of all businesses. It’s j-”

Aegis frowned at me and his ears went back an inch or so. “Okay, that’s really cynical.”

Roll. 20. “It’s not a bad thing!” I protested. “It’s just the way the business world works. I mean, I like coming here — I told you this was my thirteenth year in a row, didn’t I?”

“Back when we first met, yeah.”

“Okay. Obviously, I like coming here. Even though the place’s whole point is to take my bits.” Roll. 30. “The thing is, they’re the ones who keep taking my bits because they keep providing an experience that wants me to give them their bits.”

Aegis tilted his head. “I don’t follow.”

“Well, it’s- It’s like this. Plays on Trotway are also meant to take your bits.” Roll. 40. This might just have been my best game yet. “But they don’t just put some slapdash thing together and hope a few suckers will fall for it. They put effort into it, right?” Roll. 20.

“Yeah.”

“Right. The sets, the costumes, the design, all that jazz. You’re supposed to enjoy all that.” Roll. 10. “But there are two reasons you’re supposed to enjoy it: so you’ll come back and spend more bits, or so you’ll tell your friends about it and they’ll go see it and spend more bits.” Roll. 20. And that was it for me. We switched again. “They put up something you want to spend money on. It’s still money-focused, but it isn’t predatory or anything.”

Aegis popped a bit into the machine. “Okay. I can live with that.” Roll. 10. “But then why do they offer prizes at all? Couldn’t they just let people play?”

“They’ve gotta offer some incentive. You put a bit or two down for a game, there has to be something in there for you if you win.”

“What about playing for the sake of playing?” Roll. 10. “You know, for fun?”

My mind skipped a beat. Somehow, I hadn’t thought about that. But for the amount of time you had on most games, a bit or few seemed awfully expensive to me if you couldn’t do well. After all, if you couldn’t do well, what was the point? You didn’t have to win a prize, but you should at least be able to get more than the bare minimum out of what little time you ha-

Aegis glanced at me. “Hey. Still with me?” Roll. 10.

“I… I dunno,” I muttered. “If they un-rigged the games, maybe, you could at least have the satisfaction of doing well, but… maybe it’s just to draw more people in. So that maybe, if they do well, they can have something to show for it. And, well, paying a bit for a game that only lasts a few minutes without any chance to get anything probably wouldn’t appeal to most ponies.”

“And yet you keep putting down bits here without taking the tickets.” Roll. 10. Aegis grinned at me. “I think you’re just too competitive.”

I bristled. “I am not!”

“Uh-huh. That explains why you immediately took up my bet at the rope ladder-” Roll. 10. “-and why your main reason for not playing carnival games is that they’re rigged so you can’t do well in them, and why you’re gloating about how your scores here are better than mine-” Roll. 10.

“Well, they are.”

“Of course they are. And if you weren’t competitive, you’d just go ‘meh’, but you are, so you don’t.” Roll. 10. “And when I said that winning wasn’t everything, you got all weird and zoned out. You are competitive.”

I sighed. “Fine. You have a point there.”

“So it’s simple.” Roll. 10. “Some ponies pay and play the games because they want to have fun, and the prizes are there to draw in a few more ponies. Simple.” Roll. 10.

“Hmm.”

We swapped.I didn’t have anything more to add, so we just stood there for a few moments as I rolled the balls up the alley. Roll. 20. Roll. 30. Roll. 10.

Aegis cleared his throat. “So… what’s the whole money thing say about you?”

“Huh?”

“You’re saying the carnival’s only here to make money. What’s your excuse?”

I blinked and cocked my head. “…What do you mean, ‘excuse’? I sell crops to make money. I like it, yeah, but at the end of the day, it’s about providing goods for money.” Roll. 10.

“How can you sa-”

“Hey,” I said angrily, “I never said anything like the carnival being about money is bad. The ponies running the place need to eat and pay for stuff too, right?” Roll. 20. “And they give me a good enough experience that I’m happy to give them my money. But I need to pay for my own stuff, so being a greengrocer is about making money to pay for that. I still try to grow my crops well enough that my customers are happy to pay for them.” Roll. 20. “Being about money and making sure your customers have a good experience are not mutually exclusive.”

“Oooooooh,” said Aegis. “Wow, I, I was thinking of that completely differently.” He rubbed his neck and looked away from me. “I, um, though y-”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” I said, waving a hoof dismissively. “Whatever it was, it was a mistake.” Roll. 40. “Besides, after tonight, I’ll never see you again, and I’m not the kind to hold grudges with complete strangers.” Roll. 10. “Well, you’re not a complete stranger, but…” I shrugged. “I still won’t see you again.”

“Yeah.” His voice was a bit melancholy. I could relate.

I rolled my last ball in silence. I got a 50.

“Nice,” said Aegis, nodding in appreciation. “Very nice.”

“That might be the best I’ve ever done on this game. But I think I’m done now.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” Aegis ripped the rather small string of tickets from the machine and levitated it between us. “So what do you want to do with these, since we’re not getting anything? Seems a shame to let them go to waste.”

“Oh, pfft, that’s easy. Follow me.” We picked our way through the temporary arcade’s crowds, me counting tickets as we went. When we reached the prize counter, I took the tickets from Aegis’s magic and dropped them in front of the cashier. (I know they don’t handle cash. I can’t think of a better term for them.) Before she could say anything, I said, “We’re not interested in any prizes. If someone just needs up to eight tickets to get something they want, feel free to give these to them, okay?”

The cashier blinked, then shrugged and went with it. “Okay. Thank you for playing, and have a nice day.”

I nodded. “You, too.”

When I turned back to Aegis, he was smiling a little. “That was nice of you.”

“It wasn’t like I was going to be doing anything else with them.”

“Right. You done in the arcade?”

“For now, at least.”

“We’ve been around outside a few times. Did you see anything else you wanted to do?”

I thought for a moment, but before I could say anything, Aegis’s stomach growled loudly. He grinned sheepishly.

“Yeah, I’m hungry, too,” I said.