Bright Days Fluffy Day Care and Fluffmart was unremarkable. Another shop in a boring American strip mall, between the hardware store and the Vietnamese nail salon. You open the doors and your nose is assailed with the scent of bleach and shit. No adoption center here, only a retail floor with sparse supplies like kibble and crates, fluffy proofing foam and rubber. The daycare in the back was four sterile and brightly painted offices lined with rubber mats.
Perhaps most importantly though, Bright Days paid slightly more than minimum wage and did not drug test.
It was 7am. Right after opening. Very early for nonsense. It was Pete’s first opening shift.
Pete smiled and nodded at the enormous man, who was listing off very specific instructions at great volume, with the strange cadence of someone who watches too much anime.
"His royal highness, Prince Rupert is to always be addressed by his full title, and when speaking to him, you are to call him ‘your highness,’ for he shall not acknowledge you if you speak to him disrespectfully.’
The tubby fluffy pony stared off into space. His mane and tail in perfect curls and a little plastic crown on his head, secured with elastic string that bit into the flabby skin of his fluffy neck. Pete’s eyes glazed over but his customer service smile was made of solid steel even in the face of a verbal onslaught like this.
With the lecture finally over, Pete opened the safety gate and gave a low bow to the fluffy pony, who immediately parked himself in front of the TV.
The porcine owner of Prince Rupert left with a dramatic heel turn, and sped away in his obnoxiously loud sports car. A limp haired woman with braces was grinning from the staff bathroom where only Pete could see her.
“Kimmy were you hiding for that whole ordeal?”
The woman laughed and ruffled Prince Rupert’s perfect curls as she slipped the elastic off his little neck, uncrowning with no ceremony. Rupert smiled and rubbed a hoof across his chin with relief.
Pete gave a small cry of alarm, "no wait the owner just said… "
Kimmy rolled her eyes, “the owner isn’t here and Rupert deserves to be comfortable for the next ten hours. I fix him up in the back when I hear that stupid car coming down the road. You’re a sweet kid, Pete…”
“I’m older than you.”
“You’re a sweet kid, Pete,” Kim continued, “but this job isn’t worth stressing over. If the fluffy ponies don’t add or subtract from the population and nothing is on fire, it’s been a successful day. Chill.”
Then again, I might just be a depraved old metrosexual.