Working Mare
Part 3: Allowance
Be Ken, a stay at home dad with a law degree. It’s been about a month since you brought your pet fluffy Blossom home and things seem to be going decently well. She loves playing with you and your youngest daughter Cheryl, and she has been remarkably well behaved. There was one incident where she apparently peed in your elder daughter Carol’s room, so you had to flick her on the nose and reprimand her for it. She took the punishment really hard though for some reason; she cried for a very long time and wouldn’t come out of the play room until you coaxed her out with food. You are a bit worried though because since that incident Blossom has gone out of her way to hide from Carol whenever she is around. Before she used to just stay out of her way and didn’t interact much at all, but now she must feel so embarrassed about her accident that she skitters away and hides behind the furniture whenever she spots Carol. You tried talking to Blossom about it, but when you brought it up she just scrunched her face up and started crying refusing to say anything. You just hope that she learns to relax again around Carol someday.
Another odd habit you’ve noticed about Blossom, is that whenever you’ve been paying your daughters their weekly allowance for doing their chores, blossom can always be seen watching you poking her head out from behind something across the room. One day you beckon her over to the couch you are sitting on after your daughters have gotten their allowances, she bashfully wanders over and you say “Now Blossom, why is it every week I see you watching us from across the room whenever I am giving my daughters their allowances?”
Blossom looks up at you and says “Bwossom twying to weawn wat gweeny papaw was, it wooks spesiaw and bwossom just want know wat it is. Bwossom see daddeh ken and mummah shewew use it aww de time”
“Well Blossom” you say, trying to think of how you explained it to your daughters ages ago, “this green paper is called money, we use it to get things we need, like food and toys” you take out a couple bucks for her to examine.
“Don’t we get nummies fwom kitchen?” Blossom asks tilting her head.
“Well that is where we store them after we get them yes, but don’t you remember seeing me come home sometimes with lots of different bags?”
“Uh-huh” blossom says nodding her head.
“Well those bags were full of food and other useful things, and I got those things from stores, you know, like that gas station I take you by sometimes on our walks. These stores give me the food and other things in exchange for this money here.”
“Wat othaw things can munny get?” she asks.
“well, for example, I pick up movies for the family to watch, cleaning supplies, books to read, toys for you, heck, even you came from a kind of store”
Blossom slowly nodded her head, though you don’t think she’s fully grasped what you said. After a couple minutes of looking at the money, she looks back up at you with her sparkling green eyes and asks “can Bwossom have some munny?”
“Uh” you stammer, slightly taken aback. “What would you do with the money?”
“Buy tings of cowse!” she says beaming up at you.
Well shit, you think, this took a turn for the strange. You think that you might just do it, if just out of curiosity as to what she might do with the money. However there was no way in hell you were just going to give her money; that sounded like a fast track to spoiled brat-ville, population: one recently-put-back-up-for-adoption fluffy. “Well Blossom, you know that I don’t give my daughters their money if they didn’t do their chores, er, if they didn’t do their work” you clarify after Blossom gave you a confused look at the word ‘chores.’ “They earn the money by helping out around the house, such as washing dishes, keeping their rooms clean, doing laundry, and other odd jobs. So if you can help out in some way around the house by helping cleaning or something, I might just be willing to let you have some money.”
Blossom gasps in excitement, her eyes glistening in anticipation “Otay daddeh Ken! Wat can Bwossom do to get munnies?”
“Well…” you say getting up from the couch and surveying the room, thinking of what she could do. The house was pretty well clean, and really you couldn’t think of anything that you trusted Blossom to do safely. You glance out the patio door to the back yard, if there was any job both you and your daughters disliked, it was yard work. Your wife did the bulk of the gardening and yard work when she wasn’t working so much, but now-a-days the yard was looking like quite a disaster. The flower garden was near overgrown with weeds, the vegetable garden was also overrun, and many of the plants fruits had wasted away on the vine. You still mowed it now and again, but it was still rather shaggy, and heck there were still some leaves on the edges that were left there from last year! You know Blossom liked playing in the back yard; it was quite large and fenced in since the road was right next to your house, but do you really think she can competently do the yard work? Only one way to find out you suppose. “Well Blossom, would you like to try your ha- I mean Hoof, at some yard work?”
“Yay!” Blossom bounced in excitement, bounding over to the patio door, you didn’t think that she would start right away, nor did you want to have to supervise her too much, but you figure maybe a brief explanation of some duties would be enough for now. You open the door and follow the over excited fluffy pony outside. You start with the basics, showing what the good plants are and what the weeds are, telling her to rip up the bad plants and taking them to the compost heap behind the bushes in the corner. You sit on the patio sipping a beer, watching her go to town on the weeds. Once or twice she tried to pull up the wrong plant, or accidentally stepped on a flower, but you manage to correct her without too much difficulty, or too many nose flicks. It takes her about an hour to clear the main flower bed. You then tell her to get the weeds growing in the next flower bed and then the next. After that came the vegetable garden, she gets the weeds up alright and then you show her what the ripe vegetables look like, and tell her to as carefully as she can pluck them off the main plant and take them back to the patio where you would gather them up later. This probably took her the longest as she had to carefully reach up, nip the stem of the vegetable (tomatoes for the most part at this time of year) and carry it all the way across the yard to the patio, as for some reason your wife decided to put it at the exact opposite end of the yard from the house. Blossom was careful to not drag the big beef tomatoes on the ground or to bite down too hard as to have it fall from her mouth. Despite her care she dropped a couple, but they weren’t bruised too badly, they were going to be sliced up and either put into a salad or jarred anyway so it didn’t matter too much. This took another hour or so, and Ken decided that clearing up the rest of the weeds on the lawn would be a good ending to today’s work. Blossom was going along pretty well until you heard her go “OWWIES! AH-EH KEN HEWP BWOSSOM” you rush over to see that Blossom had tried to pull up a thistle with her mouth and had hurt her tongue on the small thorns.
“Ok Blossom let me take a look,” she obligingly opens her mouth widely. She had some small welts and there was a little blood but otherwise it didn’t look so bad.
“mowf hurries ah-eh ken” she managed to say crying a little and trying not to use her tongue to talk.
“I think that’s enough work for today Blossom, you did a very good job!” you say reassuringly to her. You take her inside and give her some water to drink, thinking it would hopefully help her feel a little better.
After a couple minutes she seems to be doing better, she comes up to you and says “Bwossom do good job?”
“Of course!” you say, honestly surprised at the quality of work that got done.
“Bwossom eawn munnies?”
“Oh right, of course” you say, almost forgetting about the bargain earlier; you pull out your wallet and decide that a five should be good for today, for the work and ‘hazard pay’ from the thistle. “Here you go little one, five whole dollars” you hold it out for her and she grasps it in her mouth then goes scampering off to the play room. You follow her and see her trying to stuff it under her bed; you stifle a laugh at the site though you do notice that she seems to have been hiding other things under there as well, toys that she must like more than the others you assume. After she gets the money tucked away she comes back up to you and you pet her lovingly on the head and scratch her chin.
“You did some fine work today there Blossom, I think tomorrow we might try cutting the grass” you say smiling.