Terrifically Tedious

“Twilight! Price check per pound on those strawberries, pronto!” The manager calls out to me, operating the cash register at the checkout line with his hooves. “A customer wants four cartons full for her son’s graduation party!”

“Coming right up, sir!” I yell back, tying on my apron, and pushing my cart back into the produce room. I had just finished filling the grapes and apples, and was about to take inventory on the bagged salads. Looking through the price sheets for the various types of fruit, I  stick my head out the door, and yell back to my boss. “Six bucks a pound! I’d tell her to go with the six pound cartons if it’s for a party!” TUrning back towards my cart, I cut open the box of pears to refill the display stand in front of me. Who knew working as a produce pony in a grocery store could be such uninteresting work?

Ugh! It is another one of  THOSE dreams, where I am going about the most boring and mundane activities imaginable. Why do Bright Valley ponies waste their dreams, their one escape from the daily grind of the boring, business-centered lives the equines of this town lead. And what do they envision in their slumber? Being successful at their miserable little careers, wanting to get ahead at jobs that would bore a mare like myself to tears. All these ponies in this town can even think about is money, money, money!

After cutting about a dozen heads of celery, I wheel my cart out into the aisle and finish filling  the wet produce shelf. I rush to try to  get the shelves filled with product, even as the grumpy and pushy supvisor keeps an eye on me, making sure I do my work properly. This slumbering stallion works in a produce department at his local market, and is now dreaming of being the manager of said store. My role in the dream is filling his job as the lowly employee, and you can imagine how much I enjoy doing such tedious busywork. How can a pony dream of making another pony miserable like this, and call it 'being sucsessful'? It's something a laid-back mare such as myself cannot understand.

Anywhere else in Ponyland I’d be helping a mare win the heart of the love of her life, or helping some young colt fight a space battle. But here I am stuck doing boring old grunt labor. But nooo, this grocery clerk dreams of making even more money than he already has, and I'm stuck helping him carry out his extremely self-centered goal as his assistant in his dream. I am so annoyed by the thought of what I’m being forced to do, that I don’t even notice I’ve cut my own hoof on the metal cart, and it’s bleeding.

“Ouch.” I reply after the fact, pretending I had actually felt pain. For me, the dreams of other ponies are a little like watching a movie- I don’t actually feel or taste anything I experience in another pony’s sleep, so I have to imagine what I do in a dream must feel like. I can't even feel the warmth of another pony's hoof touch in my dreams. My only consolation for this  annoyance, is the fact I can’t feel all the aches and pains from this eight-hour shift I’m pulling here. I can only imagine the aches and pains a pony actually doing this work must have, at the end of a full-time shift at night.

I really don’t get this… how can anybody's dream- anybody's special talent, their very purpose for living- be all about the acquisition of wealth? In all of the rest of Ponyland we barter for things, taking only what we need for our comfort. These Bright Valley ponies seek to build up a huge pile of money they are never going to use, and buy luxuries they will enjoy once, then toss in the corner and forget about. Nowhere else in Ponyland have I seen equines with such ridiculously large fortunes, side by side with poorer ponies  taking shelter in pitiful hovels, and starving. It seems so greedy and wasteful to me, not to mention cruel to the other ponies you are tramping underhoof in your oh-so-important 'rise to the top'.

Why would a pony take more then they need, and leave others to starve? Even Queen Majesty lives in no better quarters in Dream Castle and eats no better food than the rest of us- the only things that set her apart is the power and prestige her authority gives her over us.  How can the eath ponies of this town take such pleasure in cold, lifeless metal coins, and compete against each other for success, and call it 'getting ahead'? The rest of us work together as a herd in cooperation, but the way of Bright Valley is 'survival of the fittest'.

"Twilight! Where are those heads of cabbage?!" My impatient manger barks out again. "Customers will be asking for those if they're not out in the display case soon! Hurry up and move your flank back there!"

Sigh. Well, if greed and ruthlessness are what make these ponies happy, then more power to them. I've got too much to worry about wih this whole bat pony mess and what's going to happen with heart throb. So, I really think it's time for me to stop contemplating things here, and get these carrots out to the display case before my shift is done. I just hope that  though their business savvy and profits, these Bright Valley ponies really are finding the happiness they are looking for...

Oh great, I forgot to take temperature check. Now he's got another reason to bitch and moan at me again. I almost pity this stallion's employees if ever ever actually DOES become a manager like he wants to. That does it, I'm out of this ridiculous dream!