It started when the phone rang.
Big Mac looked up from his lunch and looked in the direction of the phone for a few moments before slowly standing up an walking over to it. He expanded the headset then slid it over his head.
"Y'ello."
"Yes, hello, this is Legit Collector from the Equestrian Revenue Services. I am calling to inform you that you have not paid your income taxes between the years of two-thousand and sixteen to two-thousand and nineteen. As a result, you owe the Equestrian government two-thousand, nine hundred and sixty-six bits and ninety-one cents. Failure to pay will result in seizures of passports, bank accounts, and personal property. On top of that, you will spend nine years in an Equestrian penitentiary. Do you understand what I have told you?"
Big Mac nodded. "Eeyup."
"Good. Now I must ask you if you have intentionally defrauded the Equestrian government or if this is a simple mistake on your part."
"Eeyup."
Er... yes to what? You've intentionally defrauded the Equestrian government?"
"Eeyup."
"I er... uh... o-okay, then. I'm certain that you are remorseful and would like to get this matter resolved."
"Eeyup."
"Good. Good. Now, if you wish to get this matter resolved, you need to go to the local Barnyard Bargains or some other such general store. From there you must purchase payments cards in the amount that I have stated. Do you understand?"
"Eeyup."
Big Mac walked out the door of the house and began walking around the farm, circling it a few times before the voice on the other end spoke again.
"Well? Are you there? Did you reach the Barnyard Bargains?"
"Eeyup."
"Ah, good. Now, I must warn you that you cannot alert the cashiers or other workers that you are using these payment cards for taxes. If you do then they will either charge you great amounts of interest, or they shall call the local police so that they may arrest you for tax evasion. Do you understand?"
"Eeyep."
"Er... yes, that's good. Uh, go to the cards, then."
Big Mac went back inside the house and waited for a few moments. He then walked over to the back room of the house and held the speaker of the headset away from him.
"'Scuse me, miss, but Ah'd like to buy these here payment cards."
"Good, good, now don't tell her that they're for--"
The barest smirk crossed Big Mac's face as he went into his Cousin Orchard Blossom's voice.
"Oh why that would be might fine, young'in. Might Ah say what a fine, strapping, handsome stallion you are! Just let me take those cards and Ah can get 'em rung up. So, what were you going to use these for, if you don't mind my askin'?"
"Don't tell her! Don't tell--""
"Taxes. Forgot ta pay some income taxes."
"NO! You stupid son of a--"
"Oh my, that sounds serious. Well Ah'd best get these rung out real quickly, then. Not a good thing for you to be in debt to the government." Big Mac waited for a few more seconds. "There. Here you go, good sir."
"Thank you kindly, ma'am."
Big Mac put the microphone portion of the headset back to its original position. "Y'ello."
"Grrr. You were lucky. I told you not to do that. In any case, you have the cards now?"
"Eeyup."
"Okay, good. Now, there are some numbers on the back. Read them off to me."
"Nnope."
With that, Big Mac hung up.
* * * *
The sun was shining, the air was tranquil, and everything seemed to be going just fine. The colts and fillies were playing tag in the nearby park, and their parents gossiped around them. Everything was just fine.
Until...
"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"
Huh, that was weird.
This is a definite message to the scammers that they ain't getting what they want from us.
And, unless you're going for that really thick accent where it does this.
What, no lawnmower?
These guys should be glad the thing I was working on in the 90s for someone didnt pan out.
First stage was Whitelist. You call family, they call you, press the button, they get added and passed through. Every other number doent just get blocked, the phone disconnects during data synch mode so their automate scans pick up a dead line.
Next stage when modems came out, look up number. By this time memory is so cheap its used as Write Once logging.
Etc.
Given the Pi, youd have thought by now such a system would be in a cheap phone chip set, with backdoors already included because goverments just want someone else to sell them stuff cheaper.
Thank you for this! Love Big Mac haha
I was honestly expecting big mac to say eeyup to everything legit said, I was pleasantly surprised
One tiny issue: Nowhere in this story previously did it mention cell phones being a thing in Equestria. Cordless, yes. But not portable ones you could keep a connection going from home to a store.
9493955
Pinkie did it in her chapter.
9493979
"Pinkie did it" is not a valid justification for anything involving another character. It's Pinkie Pie.
9494024
That is correct. Pinkie Pie and Disqord are both able to bend physical rules in Equestria. Pinkie just has to follow one rule: she can only do it when it is funny. Disqord can do it whenever.
So glad that Cousin Orchard Blossom showed up.
Brilliant ise of Orchard Blossom, to say nothing of the fact that Mac gave the scammer the literal runaround.
9494344
Aye, that it is
Also lol, this chapter
9494292
HH: You wanna buy into my scam?
Twilight: You don't want to scam me.
HH: I don't wanna scam you.
Twilight: You want to go home and rethink your life.
HH: I wanna go home and rethink my life.
9498096
What? He said Blueblood sid try to run away, but ran straight instead if sideways.
He should be thankful it only wasted his time and not what was left of his hearing.
9521539
Depends on how you look at it, I suppose? What I think I was thinking about when I said 'dark' was the notion that cutie marks somehow influence their pony's actions or values, because ponies--if they're people-like--are mutable and cutie marks are not, at least for the most part. So, the way I see things, the only non-dark interpretation of cutie marks is that they simply represent talent. A tax-related cutie mark would simply mean that, in one way or another, a particular pony has a natural aptitude for tax-related tasks. A cutie mark that necessitates the pony's values align a certain way sounds super-dark to me, because that suggests that parts of pony minds are simply not able to change, barring unnatural influence like Starlight Glimmer sucking their cutie mark off. I suppose it could be less dark if you reasoned that a cutie mark reflected the pony's values rather than deciding them... but then I think there's still the issue of a pony's values potentially changing, and perhaps coming to contradict their cutie mark, but we haven't really seen this happening in canon, so it seems to not to be a thing.