Whenever someone asked Sean what he did for a living, he always said that he was an “Investor”. This was only true in the loosest sense of the term. He didn’t make his money on the stock market, or invest in any businesses, rather he would purchase large amounts of game consoles, graphics cards, popular toys, or anything else with a limited stock and high demand. Sean was a scalper and a relatively successful one. He made decent money selling products for hyperinflated amounts most of the year, but he made most of his yearly earnings during the holiday season. He found that he could pretty much charge any amount when parents were desperate for gifts.
In the months leading up to Christmas, Sean would keep up with news, and trending data about what the hot toy item would be for that year. Once he got a good idea of what it might be, he would buy as much stock of it as he could and resell is for almost quadruple the MSRP, when retailers’ stock dried up. Given the amount of hype, both advertisers and the mainstream media were building around a particular product. This year he knew Fluffies, were going to be the hot item that every kid would have to get.
Sean was originally going to pass this opportunity up, not wanting to fill his house with many talking animals that he would have to take care of. That was until he learned an important detail that he hoped other scalpers like him may have overlooked; Fluffies come in a can. Fluffies could survive for weeks in their self-cleaning, and automatic feeding canisters. Apparently, their growth was also slightly stunted while they were contained, allowing retailers to keep them on the shelves longer without having to worry about their stock getting too big for its can in only three weeks. With their marvelous packaging, Sean would be able to purchase a large amount of them and sell them off just like any other item he worked with.
When it got closer to public release, Sean made sure to have his bots set up and ready to make a purchase the second orders opened on the Hasbio Website. At $250 a foal it was defiantly one of the priciest christmas toys that he ever invested in. Half the cost of the average game console, but he normally never had more than a dozen of any high-cost item. With Fluffies, he knew how popular they were going to be, so he went all in. After his bots were done, he had managed to score four lots of twenty-five foals, totaling one hundred Fluffies, and $25,000 invested. All pastel colored since he assumed they would be the more popular.
The arrival of the Fluffies the Monday after black Friday was surprisingly uneventful. Due to the value of the packages he had to sign for them. The Delivery man looking at the four boxes with bright pink and blue Hasio, and Fluffy lettering, and then to the late 20s man who had clearly spent a fortune on them.
“You own a store or something buddy?” The delivery man said in a slow questioning tone with one eyebrow raised.
Sean sighed; he always hated these awkward questions from delivery men. Even more so he hated that toy makers were insistent upon plastering their branding across their delivery boxes. This fact had led to a few of these awkward exchanges. “I’m an online retailer.”
“Right, that makes since.” He said seemingly saying that to himself more than Sean. He took back the signed electronic pad and set down the four boxes. “Have a merry christmas.”
“You too” Sean knew that was the holiday greeting from a man who realized he had met Scrooge. Whenever Sean felt bad about the idea of taking toys away from kids with his business, he liked to imagine that it was guys like that being forced to pay an exorbitant amount to keep their kids happy. Sean brought his prized packages inside and brought them to his basement.
Sean lived in his late Grandparents’ home. It was a relatively small house, that tended to get cold in the winter, but it was cheap to maintain, and it had a big basement, so it fit Sean’s needs well. The basement itself was unfinished, poured concrete floors, washer and dryer, and to the far back a room he jokingly referred to as the serial killer room. It had been his grandpa’s old workshop, but with the rotting door leading to it, and all the rusty tools it fit the Texas chainsaw massacre, aesthetic. It was capped off with his Grandfather’s M1 Carbine rifle he still had from the Korean war on the wall. Despite the basement’s mostly dilapidated appearance Sean had it set up well for his operation. He had new plastic shelving set up to keep his stock organized and off the cold, often damp floor. He found a shelf that had just been emptied of a stock of ps5s that he had sold off and placed the Fluffies there. “There you are my little golden friends; I’ll have a bunch of money and you’ll have bratty kids that will probably mistreat you” He tapped one of the boxes. “Alright fair trade!”
After grabbing a box cutter, Sean got to work. He only needed to take one Foal in an can, out of the box for pictures for his auction. Carefully opening the box and pulling out one of the twenty-five cans, what he had just bought finally hit him. Through the viewing window of the cannister he could see a pink and white unicorn foal, lightly stirring. In this state it was still somewhat reminiscent of a fetus, curled up in the womb with its eyes closed only gently kicking and squirming on occasion. He could now fully see that it was a living creature in there, and that made everything that he was doing feel so weird. He reminded himself how much these living stuffed animals that can shit cost and he was able to snap out of whatever sympathy he may be feeling. He placed the can on a backdrop so that it didn’t look like the pictures were being taken in a dingy basement. He snapped a few photos making sure the foal was fully visible in all of them. With that he got the pictures uploaded. He checked the Hasbio, website just to be sure that they were indeed sold out, and then proceeded to set up his eBay auctions. The bidding price started at $500, and “buy it now” for $1,000.
The week after everything was set up Sean made four sales. A slow start, but he knew that as it got closer to christmas and things got more desperate he would sell off his remaining stock quickly, maybe for even more than he was hoping. His hopes were shattered by a news report. As he had his morning coffee at 12:00pm one day he saw the last thing on the news that any scalper ever wants to see. Someone from Hasbio was doing an interview about the products’ success and more coming in time for christmas.
“So, your sales have been excellent” The newscaster said. “But so many kids are still going to have to go without a fluffy from Santa, this year. Do you have any plans for increasing your supply in time for the holidays?”
“Fuck no!” Sean screamed out loud. “Fuck, please fucking say no!”
The woman being interviewed, a surprisingly young woman with long dark hair and horn-rimmed glasses. The little box at the bottom of the screen simply said “Dr. Malin Crowlex: Head designer for Hasbio”. “Yes, with the opening of our west coast plant, we will be able to meet demand. We will be back in stock next week and will have more than enough Fluffies for the holidays”. She smiled and held up her own fluffy to the camera.
“Dweamsickwe am su exited to see aww dah gud giwws an’ boys wiff theiw own fwuffy!” The excited Fluffy shouted to the camera, in just the right way to make Sean think that she was making fun of him. Sean threw his cup of coffee at the tv screen with full force. The screen itself shattering and coffee spraying everywhere.
Sean’s week only got worse from there. He was awakened at 9 am by the sound of dozens of beeps and frantic terrified chirps. At first, he thought that the fire alarm was going off but realised that a huge amount of beeps were coming from the basement. Making his way down the dirty creaking stairs the beeping and chirps only got louder as he got closer to the fluffy boxes. Upon opening the box, he was greeted with dozens of flashing red lights. Taking one of the cans out and inspecting it, the can was one of many emitting the beeping sound and had a flashing red indicator light, the still young foal squirming in fear and chirping from all the loud noises. Looking at a small screen on top of the can it flashed red letters saying, “Formula low, please refill”.
Sean had hoped that he would sell them all off before having to do anything like this. He looked for anything on the can that would turn off the incessant flashing and beeping but it was no use. Defeated, he put the can back in the box with the rest and drove to the closest Fluffy Mart. Unfortunately, having not been the only one to have seen the news story the line into the store was going out the door. All the people who stood in line during the christmas rush that Sean always made fun of, he was now waiting in line with.
As the line moved closer to the doors Sean heard an infuriating high-pitched voice and ringing bells. Looking down he saw a pure white earthie fluffy, wearing a Santa hat and several bell collars jumping around next to a collection bucket. “Mewwy chwistmas an’ happy howidays! gib fwuffy money to gib to dah poow!”
Sean had never wanted to kick something more in his life. He had some form of salvation come when he saw a man walking out of the store with a whole case of formula. “Hey buddy” Sean shouted at the man “Look I really need to get formula; can you sell me yours. I’ll give you double what you paid for it. “
The man stopped, looked at Sean and smiled “five hundred bucks and it’s all yours.”
“Five Hundred!” Sean practically shouted back. “There is no way that shit is two hundred and fifty dollars”.
“It’s not. but the fact that I will have to stand in this fucking line again is” The man shook the box in Sean’s face. “Five hundred, take it or keep waiting in line.”
“Fuck it, give me your cash app.”
Sean returned home with the formula. He mixed a big batch of it in one of his grandma’s big old stew pots. He watched a tutorial on YouTube about how to refill the milk revivors on the cans, which was of course made by the same women who fucked him over to begin with. After getting them all properly refilled, he placed the cans back into the boxes and on the shelves. The beeping and terrified chirps of the Fluffies finally stopped. He really was beginning to hate Fluffies, graphics cards didn’t need him to buy fucking milk. “Choke on it you little fucking money sinks!” he screamed as he stormed back upstairs.
Weeks passed, and since supply now met the demand Sean only managed to make a few lucky sales. On Christmas Eve, he was still left with ninety unsold foals. As most of his remaining family were out of the state and Sean himself had no local friends to speak of, he sat alone in his dark living room. A new tv and a bottle of pre spiked eggnog being the only gifts that he had given to himself. He absentmindedly watched christmas cartoons that made him think of a better time. The irony of his enjoyment of the Grinch was not lost on him, and he of course preferred the Jim Carrey version.
It was in a depressed drunken state that he started to hear voices coming from the basement. They started off soft enough to be the drunken delusions of an unquiet mind, but they began to get louder and more desperate. “Daddeh pwease wet babbeh out!” many voices screamed.
Sean made his way to the basement and grabbed a fluffy can out of the box. A red and blue Pegasus cried and screamed as it tapped the glass with its hooves, its body now too big to comfortably fit in the can. “Daddeh babbeh wants to wun an’ pway an’ be gud babbeh. Pwease wet babbeh out. Babbeh am too big fo’ dah can nao.”
Sean’s rage finally reached a head. He now knew that he was left with ninety unsellable Fluffies, and had lost over twenty thousand dollars to them. In a complete fit of rage, he tossed the can he was holding at the concrete wall. The glass of the can shattered and the foal splattered in the impact killing it instantly. He breathed heavily and picked up a box and walked it over to his grandfather’s old table saw in the back room. He flipped it on, the saw letting out a squeaky hum as it came to life for the first time in a very long time. He pushed the box against it as its occupants screamed in terror, blood and shit splattering against him as he cut through the cannisters and into the foals. He turned the box over to get the the remaining cans, the cardboard getting limp, and damp started to fall away. A few lifeless cans fell to the ground and shattered. Sean was left with a bloody wet mound of flesh, cardboard, metal, and glass.
He pulled his grandfather’s rifle down from the wall, slammed a magazine into it and cocked it. He grabbed another loaded spare magazine and shoved it into his pockets. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and brought the remaining three boxes upstairs and outside. The foals in them begged in any way they could, now offering to stay in the cans and be " gud babbeh” Sean was just done with everything. Having not done any shooting since his grandfather was alive, he decided to use the opportunity. He threw a few cans into the air but in his drunken state he could not hope to hit any of them, and the cans shattered as they hit the ground.
Frustrated, he decided they would be easier to hit on the ground. He started opening cans and letting the foals out. The pink unicorn he had first taken pictures of stared at him as she stood up fresh out of the can. “ pwease daddeh babbeh wiww be gud. Babbeh be youw bestes’ babbeh an’ gib ‘ou aww dah huggies an’ wub.”
Sean shot the foal where it stood, now being an easy target. He kept opening and throwing cans until red and blue lights flashed behind him. “Put down your weapon now!” The cop shouted at Sean, his pistol already unholstered.
Sean decided he would stick to selling game consoles from now on.
Author’s Note:
Hope you enjoyed another story in the Sucessful Launch Universe. Please take a look at my other stories if you have not already. Feedback is very appreciated.