Timmy was not happy. He didn’t want to go on this field trip. He didn’t want to see a bunch of stupid fluffies. He tried to hide the permission slip in his backpack. His mom got a call from his friend Johnny’s mom who told her how excited Johnny was for the field trip. So, she signed him up and now we’re here.
Timmy crossed his arms and pouted as the school bus bounced along. After the field trip was done they would all get picked up straight from school, so they all had their backpacks with them. He was sitting by himself as the only kid on the bus apparently not excited in one way or another for this trip.
Johny sat with Suzy. Timmy liked Suzy, he always tried to show Suzy all the cool things he found like dead bugs, and frogs, and gun shaped sticks. But Suzy didn’t like any of the things he liked. She liked things that were pink and flowery and gross. She had a backpack with a picture of Cinnamummah, the disgustingly sweet star of a show on FluffTV, on it. In the photo, she was hugging her TV star foals.
The bus pulled into the parking lot of the giant barn shaped building. A man out front in a Fluffy costume spun a sign while doing “dancies” which consisted of standing on one foot and bobbing up and down. Still somehow blowing every fluffy dance in history out of the water. It was late fall so the heat of the costume balanced out the cold dry wind. The teacher called the students in pairs, and they filed out of the bus.
Timmy got paired up with Suzy, she hated it but tried to ignore him to while focusing on the glorified fluffmart. He zipped up his sweatjacket as they waited in the cold. As they were led up to the store a man wearing a cowboy hat introduced himself as the manager and their tour guide. “Are y’all ready to tour the Fluffyard?” He was met with a collective shouting of affirmations that averaged into a “Yeah!”
Before he opened the door to let them all through he reminded them “Get out all your shouting out here. You don’t want to scare the fluffies by getting too excited inside.” The kids made a show of getting quiet, some covered their mouths a few quietly let out high pitched squeals. Then he opened the floodgates and the children flooded into the showroom.
A large collection of rainbow-colored acrylic pens greeted them. Sticker decals were applied to the outsides to make it look like they had wooden fences. Each pen listed the name of the Momma inside and a second name next to the title Daddy. A few employees loitered around to supervise the children as they shook out their excitement. After a brief few minutes of the children running around, pointing at foals, and making small talk with fluffies, the tour commenced.
“As you’ve all seen, the main yard here is where we keep our new mommas. This is where anyone that wants a fluffy can come and pick out a little colt or filly and give it a new home! But there’s a whole lot more that goes on behind the scenes.”
He guides the crowd of grade schoolers through a pair or swinging double doors. In the back are smaller, less brightly colored pens and kennel cages. “Back here is where the magic happens, out dedicated ‘Fluff Herders’ watch over soon mummahs, take care of all their health needs, and make sure stallions only give good special huggies. ” He tried to gloss past the breeding part; they almost certainly knew what it was, but he didn’t need complaints to corporate from concerned parents because their second grader heard someone say penis.
They walked around the pens and looked down at the bloated mares. Each easily carrying an oversized litter. “Aww, she looks just like Cinna! She’s so pretty!” Suzy squeaked out, pointing at a bloated brown mare with a tan mane. Not exactly, but staff put a magenta bow in her mane.
Most of the mare’s had some accessory or another. The repeated cycle of customers calling them ugly, while taking their colorful foals, ate away at their self-worth. “Weawy? Human bebbeh dink Gingew am pwetty?” Suzy was so giddy to be addressed by the mare. “The prettiest! Look.” She turned around her bag to show the Mare the vinyl image of Cinnamummah and her foals on the back. The mare tapped her hooves together to clap. “Dat am wook wike gud mummah!”
She squinted her eyes at the photo. “Um, dat wed bebbeh wook wike bebbeh spechow fwen.” Suzy was confused by that statement. Suspension of disbelief caused her to fail to piece together that the foals on TV actually grow up. “Silly Ginger, that’s Apple, he’s a toughie baby that protects his family from bullies.”
“Dat am wite, speciaw fwen am name appew!” FluffTV had to cycle foals constantly while they were still filming live action episodes of Cinnamummah. The former Foal Stars were lucky to end up in new programming. They, alongside dancie babbies were all one trick ponies, literally, and ended up as front display advertising tanks performing for passerbys. If that failed they ended up as breeders. If that failed, recycled. It was better than a cycle of sketti addiction that culminated in a tragic shootout with the fluffy police that would surely result otherwise.
“Ok, let’s move on to the next area.” They were all moved across the room to the stallion tanks. Suzy waved goodbye to Ginger as they moved over. Timmy watched this all play out. He noticed she liked the dumb poopy ones but didn’t like all the ‘gross’ things he showed her.
They ended up in front of the stallion cages. They had clear acrylic sheets with air holes for doors, they were like the cat tanks at a pet shelter. “Here is where we keep the stallions that father all the foals you saw out front.” He went into a spiel about selecting good males based on color, temperament, and other made-up traits to hide the fact that breeders were behavioral stallions that couldn’t sell or were returns that couldn’t be rehomed.
Timmy looked into the pens, one was sleeping and, with flag at half-mast, humping it’s blankie. The next tank over had a red stallion whose name was ‘Apple’ according to the label on the door. “Hey Suzy, look it’s Apple.” He hoped to win some goodwill from her from this simple action. “Really?” She pushed over to the glass with a smile, then frowned. “This isn’t apple”, holding up her backpack, “Apple is a colt, this is a stallion.”
The earthy took note of their attention and came up to the glass. His eyes widened as he saw her backpack “Dat am Appew’s Mummah an Appew!” he started pounding on the Plexiglass. “Pwease Appew miss mummah! Appew miss mummah an bwuddas an sistahs an sgettis!” His mind went back to the time on set with all the pampering and adoration he could receive. He had fallen so far and wanted it all back.
“Uh oh, looks like we have a bad Stallion!” The manager ignored the content of the muffled outburst, and another worker came to whisk him away to the sorry box. “Bad stallions don’t get to have special huggies.” Timmy pieced it together but kept quiet. He figured that some of the foals running around must be Cinnamummah’s grandchildren.
They got led around to a few more places. The intimate “huggy room” which was unoccupied but had a strange sour metallic odor. The brightly colored birth room full of pillows where an exhausted mare was sleeping on a stained towel being tended to by a nurse Fluff.
Last was the vet room where a worker was looking over some freshly newborn foals and giving them their vaccinations with a jet injector designed to force liquid through the foal’s delicate skin without the risk of a needle. It made a sharp his and the foals jolted at the sound. Apple was in a clear plastic tote, high off his kite on the smallest dose of ketamine physically administrable.
Finally, they were all led back to the main yard. They went back around to look around the tanks again. Even Timmy. He started scanning the names on the tanks furthest from the others, the stallion fathers were listed under the mare names. He found the one he wanted: Apple. Inside the tank was Cherry, a red mare with a brown mane.
She was a return that wasn’t fixed early and whose owners were informed fixing wouldn’t stop her baby fever once it developed. All the better, she had birthed twelve litters now for Fluffmart and ‘got to choose’ new mummahs and daddehs for her foals. “Hewwo Mistah? New daddeh fow bebbeh?” She held up a gray colt the color of his sweater.
“No thanks.” He said. “What about that one?” He pointed at a brown filly with a yellow mane just coming in. It was a unicorn but that could be fixed he thought. “But dat am…” The mare stopped herself, humans would tattle on mares that called their babies poopies or monsters. They got a 10% discount; it was like the free drink at Taco Bell you got if they didn’t try to upsell you one. The advantage here was that purchasing a fluffy involved half as much diarrhea as buying a Gordito Supreme.
“Otay Mistah. Nyu daddeh fow kibbew cowah bebbeh!” She held the foal up. Happy to get it out of her sight. He took the filly into his hands. “Nyu daddeh?” “Be quiet.” He ordered. She chirped once in fear but stayed quiet as he slipped her into his sweat jacket pocket. It was warm so she didn’t protest and quickly fell asleep.
Suzy ran over to him. “Come on. The teacher wants us all back with our partners.” She sighed having to corral him. He followed and they were all handed a coupon sheet for supplies with the purchase of a fluffy. He tucked it in his backpack planning to toss it as soon as he got home.
The climbed into the bus and as soon as it started rolling the filly began chirping again. “Do you hear that?” a girl in the row in front of him asked. “Must be the window.” He reached with one hand into his pocket to hold the filly’s mouth closed while he pushed the cracked window closed with his other hand.
He transferred the filly to his backpack once she stopped fighting his hand. From between his history and science textbook, she looked up at him with sad and fearful eyes. He held his finger up to his mouth making a shushing movement. The filly didn’t know what that meant but by luck stayed quiet the rest of the ride home. He figured he would give the miniature Cinnamummah grandbaby to Suzy on Monday to win her over.
They made it to the school where parents were waiting to drive their kids home. “How was the field trip.” “Fine.” “Did you see anything cool?” “No.” “Do you have anything besides one-word answers?” “We saw the special hugs room.” That shut his mom up.
He got home and dropped his bag next to the door, forgetting the suspiciously quiet foal inside. He ran upstairs to his room to play some brain rotting flashing light simulator. The kind that kids developed unhealthy fetishes over, like Fortnite, or Roblox.
His mom got a call from Johny’s mom, he wasn’t paying attention, something about coupons. A few moments later he heard a scream from downstairs as his mother discovered the crushed foal between his schoolbooks.
“THOMAS JERAMIAH TAYLOR!”
Since flagship stores are near major population centers, and they breed animals. Many schools now schedule field trips to Fluffmart “Fluff Yard” to satisfy what had in the past been field trips to actual farms.
As a major branding to appeal to a wider customer base, the stores serve two secret purposes. The poor color mares raising foals help improve public opinion of poor color foals this helping sales. The second is the field trips. Many children that visit the stores and see “behind the scenes” develop fluffy fever. The bare minimum of a general manager giving a half hour tour to various grade school classes boosts sales significantly during the school year.
Hasbio sales centers have made great strides in productivity. All the creature comforts necessary to satisfy a soon-mummah or nursing mare are provided.
Each 4'x4' pen comes equipped with the following:
- 1 “safe wawa” water bottle, checked twice a day.
- 1 spill proof bowl, stocked with sketti flavored mare formulated kibble (factory blend*). Refilled 3 times a day as needed.
- 8 heated foam pads. Basic colors are chosen so that mares can teach their foals colors.
- 5 foam blocks. so that mares can teach their foals counting.
- 1 ball, random color
- 1 simple tablet sized screen hooked up to FluffTV:Foals, a valuable babysitter for tired mummahs
- 1 ground pit litterbox, shared between 4 pens, and cleaned with water automatically once every 8 hours. Workers inspect once a day to ensure no poop gets stuck in the grate.
- 4 2-foot-tall acrylic walls, both to provide visual stimulation to fluffies but also to help workers identify stalls by sight rather than number.
- video surveillance to ensure safety of mares and litters born when staff are not present
Process improvements:
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30 names have been carefully selected for each mare at a “Fluff Yard”. Based on their base coat and mane color. 12 for brown, 9 for bad colors, and 9 for good colors with bad manes. Because of this, staff will know a mare’s name regardless of store. Mares with names are generally happier than numbered fluffies.
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Indoctrination. At night, when the tablets are turned off, the tablet speakers continue to play instructions on how to be a good fluffy at a low almost undiscernible volume.
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Poorly colored Fillies are taken and educated to be breeders and mummahs. This turns a significant portion of bad stock into revenue generation. After an initial obedience screening**, they are sorted to breeding facility or flagship “Fluff Yard” store.
*factory blend includes mild laxatives to ensure stool is soft to pass through litterbox grate.
**obedience screening is not foolproof. Mares can lie in the hopes of getting a more prestigious home and stores should monitor new mares closely to ensure proper conditioning.
Special thanks to @Ace for permission to use his character Cinnamummah