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Doing laundry is always a chore, and sometimes I envied my pony neighbor for rarely having to do laundry. Until I found out she wasn't allowed to wash her blankets.
It’s an unfair rule and shouldn’t apply to ponies, but the laundromat clerk won’t budge. A creative solution is required.
For Bicyclette’s Thousand Words contest
Now with a reading by StraightToThePointStudio!
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Written for Bicyclette’s Thousand Words contest! Go check that out!
In case you’re from a country that doesn’t have laundromats, that’s a place that has self-serve washing machines and dryers, traditionally coin-operated (or token operated, I suppose). Some now use magnetic cards that you can reload with money, and I would presume that there are ones that use a cell phone app.
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Inspired in part by Present Perfect’s The Loneliest Laundromat and in part by having seen that pic of the “No Horse Blankets” and of course the continuing necessity to do laundry.
Which is all a conspiracy by Big Detergent.Why no horse blankets? I’d assume because they’re big, heavy, and dirty with things that you don’t necessarily want to stay around in the washing machine. Obviously, there are washing machines that can handle such things, and in places with lots of horses, there are often laundromats or horse supply stores that will wash your horse blankets. You may remember Sweetsong passing by Blanket Express Equine Laundry. Perhaps that’s where Mountain Meadow should go for her laundry needs.
Another consideration (although likely not why laundromats put up the signs) is that the chemicals and scents in normal laundry soap might not be good for a horse. If you’re interested, here’s a blog from Blanket Safe (who may not be unbiased) regarding that.
I probably don’t need to say this, but don’t put your pony in the washing machine, either.
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Immediately when I read the description, I thought of this
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This is a great story. ^^
11215445
Ponies are top-load, light duty, warm wash/warm rinse only
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My laundromat has the same sign and I asked the cleaner why once. Appaerantly it's more to fo with the hair getting into the filters of the washer and if it survives that really packing up the lintel trap on the dryers. Appaerantly it can be a fire hazard as well.
The most notorious of crimes.
11215638
more the filters in the washer.
i have one of the Big Big washers from a laundromat that closed down and sold out.
funny as i have it just for doing my horse and pony blankets.
and yes i do have to clean out the button trap after every load during shedding season that is.
awesome short story i love it.
Short, sweet, and cute little story.
This story is good, and very typical for you, Biscuit. I just have one issue...
As someone who writes stuff about ethics, philosophy, neurology, futurism, sci-fi... so many subjects where this comes up, this is a huge peeve for me. The word you are looking for is "Human", not "Person". Personhood is a complicated concept involving thoughts, feelings, experience of reality, etc. There are MASSIVE debates about what makes a person a person, but anyone who would tell you that only human count as people would be promptly ignored as not knowing enough to be in the debate. Meanwhile, being a human is a matter of species, nothing more.
Not all "people" are "humans", and (in many views of the issue) not all "humans" count as "people".
He means to say "if there's a human carrying it", because the clerk has already complained about a person doing so, the person being the pony here: ponies are people, just as much as humans.
Whoa there! Ponies are people, too.
11215445 Hey, I put a pony in a washing machine in a story and it came out perfectly fine. Well, until Twilight Sparkle disintegrated him later. But he was clean.
When I was little, I had a blanket, a big, heavy one with galloping horses printed on it, which my parents called the horse blanket. Not because it was intended for horses, of course, but hey, whatever.
I wish I still had that blanket. There was no other quite like it.
However, your pony Princess can choose to wash herself any time she likes! It's good to be the Princess.
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Pretty cute.
11215709
It doesn’t matter what you think he means to say, because you didn’t write the story, and your idea of how that character should act is… irrelevant.
11215445
There are countries without laundromats?
11215715
Yea, but he said it with implied quotation marks, as though to say that while that is what the guy thinks, I think he is being rediculous.
Laundromat life sucks. Learn to wash your clothes in the sink or a wash basin, reuse dirty clothes and only go to the laundromat when things get really bad.
11215807
Heh heh, even better - I work in a workshop that repairs laundry and kitchen appliances/equipment.
We have a washing machine in the corner that we use for washing our cleaning rags, towels, and anything else we need. So we bring in our personal laundry and wash it while we work.
Horse blankets are not a big deal, if you run a cleaning cycle after the load, or just an empty load.
And the main reason dryers catch fire is due to solvents and other flammable chemicals left on the clothes, rather than filter blockages.
Also, top loaders beat front loaders anyday (unless you rely on rainwater and have a limited supply of water).
You heard of money laundering... now we have horse blanket racketeering.
Heck, bring your laundry to me Meadow I'll do it for you.
Brilliantly wholesome and humorous, and very surreal to hear a relatable perspective with how boring it can be while waiting for the machines to finish their cycles! Hope ya didn't mind, but I couldn't resist making a reading of this clean fic of yours! Good luck with the contest!
Audio Linky!: https://youtu.be/Ut1BBMGH758
11215800 There are no 'implied' quotes around the word, no special formatting, no specific contextual reason to actually imply something else, nothing at all to indicate that the word was used with some other meaning in mind.
I'm not upset, btw, I was just pointing it out. It's a cute Admiral Biscuit story, and this is not a big deal.
Wow... so many people took your 'person' word to heart.... lol, took an innocent word and made it seem racist or bigoted...
Other than the hilarious (and generally over-thought) comments, your story is great, well thought out, and executed nicely. It flows smoothly and was an enjoyable read, even with the short length... especially because of the short length. Usually short stories are lacking in all departments that make a story great, but yours was not lacking in any aspect. I have yet to see If you have longer stories, but your shorts are top notch, keep up the good work!
I mean, I can imagine why the rule exists.
If they don't wash their blankets for a month or more at a time between washes, imagine how much fur is shed in them. Having a few of them in one load could have a chance to clog up the washer.
Short and lovely.
Absolutely gorgeous story Admiral!
I'll have to check the "Bicyclette’s Thousand Words contest"!
I like it. It's got that neat little bit of pony and human cultural incongruity going, with that hint of bureaucratic stickling that feels so perfectly petty, and that oh-so-human defiance of authority.
They even consider that there might be valid reasons for the ban on horse blankets, or at least reasons. It's a neat idea, and I have to wonder how soon before someone does bring them a horse blanket one of their human friends asked them to wash 'however ponies do it'. Which, of course, is in a machine like everyone else, but hey, maybe they just prefer pony soap.
11215747
Well obviously they are not called that everywhere ^^;;
In Italy they are called "Lavanderia a gettone" and are not THAT common, more common are the "standard" laundry where you leave your things and come back later to get them out.
11215709
11215745
Hmm On one hand the issue of personhood is an important thing, on the other the guy there may be making that error.
Nice job taking time to describe her ears flicking forward and back as well as when she sniffed the detergent.
11216485
Cool.
11215638
Ah, so it all depends if Equestrian Pony hair is the same as mundane pony hair. If it is then Ponies shouldn’t use standard dryers for anything not just blankets. If it’s not then everything is cool.
Either way the attendant is a petty tool who doesn’t actually know his own safety rules.
This is actually the minor detail that could actually be a believable oversight with Pony emigration and it could take years for the statistical anomaly of more dryer fires than there should be in Pony homes on Earth is noticed.
11215595
More soap equals more clean, that’s a proven fact.
Thank you!
11215608
Yes, exactly. No spin cycle, either; it makes them dizzy.
11215638
I could see that being a plausible reason. As far as I know, IRL equines don’t shed much except their winter coats, which is of course when they’ll be wearing their blankets.
11215646
Wonder when the laundry attendant is going to catch on that something’s fishy.
“Boy, you sure do have a lot of blankets.”
“Yup, I really like blankets.”
11215670
Makes sense . . . since you’re here and you’d know, do horses only shed their winter coat (in the spring), or do they also shed their summer coat going into the fall?
Thank you!
11215689
Thank you!
11215709
Maybe the word I’d be looking for, but what word does our protagonist1 look for? It’s dialogue, not a legal definition. Heck, the laundromat attendant implies Mountain Meadow is a horse, but she isn’t.
It is, and not only is there the philosophical sense (maybe not the right word, but I think the closest in the sense that you’re using it/debating it), but there’s the legal sense where it simply means if she can sue or be sued. So in that regard, a ship might be a ‘person.’2 There are also various religious senses of ‘person,’ a definition of which might be someone with a soul (I didn’t have much luck finding a religious definition). Do ponies have souls?3
Or there’s the casual definition 1 and 2 of ‘person’ from dictionaries: “1:A human being, whether an adult or child; 2:A human being as distinguished from an animal or thing.”
I work with some humans who might not be considered to be people, depending on how you define people.4
1Speaking of things people mean to say, you refer to the protagonist as ‘he’, even though their gender is never specified. I suppose in this case it can be whatever you want.
2If MLP ponies are legally persons, that raises a whole host of other issues, like having to wear pants or some other clothing which covers their hindquarters lest they run afoul of public nudity laws. There could be other issues with laws that are intended for human persons as well.
Interestingly, this did lead me down a rabbit hole. I found out that thus far, the courts have ruled that horses cannot sue people (most recently in 2018 Justice v Gwendolyn Vercher. In some of the various commentary on the case, I came across this great quote: ‘Well, we’re kind of establishing they’re legal persons with that. And legal persons can’t be eaten.’
3In a different rabbit hole, I found out that some Christians believe animals do not have souls and some Christians believe that they do (I did not have time to check other religions). Both sides had Bible verses, original Hebrew, and Church canon to back them up. One source mentioned Balaam’s donkey (Numbers 22), who could see an angel when Balaam could not . . . which, according to the source, ‘implies that animals, arguably because of their innocence, can see the spirit world all the time.’
4 I’m tempted to ask some of the people I work with (who may not be defined by the State of Michigan as ‘persons’ under the law) if they ‘can conceive themselves as themselves’ (Locke). That would be a great change to the ‘are you a robot’ checkbox, or I suppose Pony immigration forms: “Can you conceive yourself as yourself? Y/N”
In the great words of none other than Cold in Gardez, “Stories about ponies are stories about people.”
EDIT: oops, forgot to put the link to the ‘animals see spirits’ article.
LINK
11215715
None other than Cold in Gardez said so.
11215716
The important thing was that he was fine. Until he was disintegrated. But it wasn’t the laundry that did it.
As a former co-worker was fond of saying when a particularly awful car rolled into the shop, “four tires, a wax job, and send her to the crusher.”
11215728
I’ve got one or two unicorn blankets that are like that. I’ll have to look around and see if I can find them. They’re too small for adult me, but I wonder what happened to them?
I know that feel. I’ve had a few things in my life that can never be replaced.
11215734
She’s an alicorn princess, she makes the rules. That’s just how it works.
11215741
Thank you!
11215747
A quick search tells me that Vatican City has no laundromats. There may be others.
After someone did a translation of one of my stories into Chinese and explained what “Home Depot” was for Chinese readers, I’ve been thinking more about what we Westerners take for granted that may not be the case in other regions or nations.
11215807
Different people have different tolerances for dirtiness of clothing, not to mention occupational hazards. Someone who isn’t very hard on their clothes might be able to use them day after day with little to no cleaning, whereas someone who works as a mechanic (for example) might end the workday covered in dirt, grease, oil, etc. and not want to wear those filthy clothes a second day.
11215892
Ooh, that’s like what I do, but smaller and probably not leaking oil as often.
That’s a nice work bonus!
Good to know!
I kinda was wondering about that, when some other people brought it up . . . didn’t seem horse hair would be more flammable than any other hair (like dog hair).
Please expand on this . . . I knew that frontloaders used less water, but are there other reasons they’re not as good?
11215971
That’s how ponies lead you into a life of crime, it seems so cute and innocent to wash illicit horse blankets for them, and before too long you’re running illegal cupcakes across the border. . . .
11216109
I would, too. You just can’t turn down a pony who wants your help.