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Lyra's Human 2: Derpy's Human

by pjabrony

Chapter 61: 58: Derpy's Rules of Order

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“So, as much as I love this thing, the process of getting used to something new is always annoying.”

Throughout her breakfast with Derpy, Karyn kept peeking at her new phone. All the alerts it put out were the same sound and image, whether it was for a text message, voicemail, or advertisement. She could never be sure that it was something she needed to pay attention to, or just ignore and delete. Derpy had noticed and thought it was a little rude of her.

“I can understand, but if you focus on breakfast now, I’ll be happy to help you understand it once we’re done.”

“Are you sure you don’t just want to focus on breakfast because you’re hungry?”

Derpy grinned, but then frowned when the phone buzzed again. “Really?”

“Last one, I promise. This is the text I was waiting for. And it’s today, bummer.”

“What’s today?”

Karyn shut off her phone and placed it on her desk. “Do you remember when I had that get-together a few weeks back?”

“The one where someone broke your phone, which led you to buy that one, which is why it took you so long to eat breakfast? I’m familiar with it.”

“Like I said at the time, they were some students who seemed like it would be good to know. Well, the result of it is that they convinced me to join the student government.”

“Oh,” said Derpy, as she finished her breakfast. “So, like, you guys are studying what it would be like to be a government, in case you want to be a mayor or something?”

“Not exactly. I’m sure some people use it for that, but what we’re supposed to do is to be the voice for the students if they have a complaint to the school’s administration. Though the guy who is running it said that it’s more like we have to protect the administration from the students.”

“But you’re part of it? That sounds great! You can help do all the computer things they need.”

“It’s not that formal an organization. There’s no office, we just meet in the student union building.” Karyn blinked. “Which I suppose is our office, but up until now it’s been used as a hangout or a rec center, so that’s how everyone thinks of it. Anyway, after the party the guy who organized it—his name’s Gerald—asked me to come to the next meeting where they would elect the officers. I figured that I should show some interest in the school, so I went, and they voted for four positions. There was the president, the vice-president, the secretary, and the treasurer.”

Derpy listened, eagerly lapping up the information on something that was unfamiliar to her. “And are they all good people?”

“Well, here’s the punch line. Only three people showed up. Gerald, one of his friends, and me. So I wound up as secretary and treasurer.”

“Ooh, fancy titles.”

“But they don’t mean anything as is. If we keep holding meetings and no one shows up, we’ll just be a rinky-dink organization that no one will take seriously. On the other hand, if we do get bigger, I’ll have a lot of work to do, in two jobs that I have no idea how to do.”

Derpy grinned. “Sure you do.”

“What do you mean? They should get a business major to take those positions, not an IT geek like me.”

“I don’t know about the secretary. But you’ll make a great treasurer. Haven’t I been telling you all about budgeting?”

Karyn stared at her. “It’s a completely different thing. You’re telling me not to spend so that I won’t run out of money. This is all about keeping records and being responsible for other people’s money.”

“No, it’s all the same. Just a question of scale. It’s like…” Derpy thought for a moment. “It’s like the mini muffin versus the big muffin. But they’re both tasty.”

“You just had breakfast. Are you still hungry?”

“Maybe a little.”

Karyn cleared her own plate and picked up her phone again. She filed through some of the options until she came up with her calendar. “Anyway, at the last meeting, this Gerald guy said he’d schedule the next one for the most convenient time for everyone. But since they’re business majors and I’m IT, our schedules have a lot of conflict, and even when we have free time, we don’t always want to walk across the campus to the building. Especially if it’s me walking at night. So they wound up scheduling it for today at three. I couldn’t very well complain that it would cut into the time I spend with my flying pony friend.”

“And of course you’re not going to.”

“I don’t think it’ll be too exciting.”

Derpy shook her head. “You only think that because you’re used to it. When you came with me on my mail route, or when you sat at the get-together with the Apple family, you enjoy those a lot, but it’s old hat for me. So you go to the meeting and try to enjoy it as best you can, but I’ll be there in the corner, invisible, thinking of all the questions I want to ask.”

“If you say so. It’s going to be difficult to establish communication though.” Karyn eyed her phone and Bluetooth.

“No. You are not going to be staring at your phone in the meeting pretending to send texts while I read over your shoulder. We are going to nip this habit in the bud. It’s fine to play at talking to fool people on the streets, but when you’re talking to other people, they deserve your attention.”

“Yes, Mama Derpy.”

Derpy grinned, and she gave Karyn a hug to show that she wasn’t really mad at her. With the specter of the meeting looming, the girls didn’t do anything more strenuous in the morning beyond checking their virtual crops in their social network game. At noon, Karyn was eager to head out for lunch. As they walked across the campus, she explained why.

“We all have our meal plans, and they go by the week. You can spend seventy dollars in a week, but anything that’s left over, you lose. So everyone waits till Saturday and they take what they have left over and buy stuff that lasts—bottled water, sodas, that kind of thing. And then they run out. So I get mine on Sunday when the week begins.”

“But how do you know that you’re not going to overspend?”

“Because I kept having the same amount left over every Saturday.”

Derpy’s voice went high with excitement. “You’re going to be a great treasurer!”

Karyn rolled her eyes. “That’s not being money-smart. It’s just common sense and math.”

“That’s what being money-smart is. And I’m not even good at math. I have to use quill pen and scrolls.”

They reached the cafeteria, but the roll-gate was down. Karyn pulled out her phone and checked the time. “They’re not supposed to close for another ten minutes! They always do this.”

“Give them a break. Everyone likes to knock off a few minutes early.”

“That’s fine on the weekdays, when they run till nine at night. But on weekends there’s only a four-hour brunch and a one-hour dinner. We’ll just have to make sure that we get there as soon as the dinner hour opens. Meanwhile, we’ll grab a sandwich from the vending machine.”

Derpy didn’t care for the sandwich, as it was wrapped in plastic and not fresh, but it sustained her until they reached the student union building. The hall was a white concrete structure with a slanted glass roof, and when they entered, Derpy could see the sun through the skylights. But then they went inside the inner section, which was set up as more of a meeting room, and had no windows. The drop ceiling was cramped, and there were low, padded chairs around the room, but also a wider table. Normally the table would be in the middle, but it had been shifted to the side so that the officers could address the crowd.

A couple of girls were chatting in the corner, and waved to Karyn with unrecognizing looks on their faces. As she set her things down on the main table, they seemed hopeful that she would tell them what was going on.

More people began walking in every few minutes. Word had gotten around that the student government was a serious thing, and perhaps a dozen people had taken the low chairs before a sweater-vested young man strode in and dropped his own bag on the table.

“Hey, Karyn.”

“Gerald. Good to see you again. Meet—“ she cut herself off before she could introduce Derpy.

“Yeah, meeting looks more full this time. Jan’s on his way. He’ll be here any minute.”

As he said that, the vice-president entered and shut off his phone, taking his place opposite Gerald.

For a moment, Derpy enjoyed the din of the conversation. Although she couldn’t make out any one line in particular, she could sense the anticipatory mood.

“OK, everyone,” said Gerald. “Let’s get started. I’m glad to see more people here. Last time it was just the three of us, so we went ahead and took the offices. If anyone else wants to help out, we’ll talk about that at the end of the meeting.

“Why doesn’t everyone come gather in a little closer?”

There ensued a scramble, as Derpy dipped and dodged to make sure she didn’t get in anyone’s way. By the time the meeting continued, a throng of people was between her and Karyn.

Gerald was continuing his introductions. “And this is Karyn Hubert, from the IT department. She’s our treasurer and secretary.”

Karyn saw an opportunity to make her life a lot easier. “Does anyp—does anyone mind if I record the audio for the meeting?”

No one said anything, but at the same time everyone averted their eyes from Karyn.

Gerald coughted. “I don’t think that’s really the best idea. We’re all concerned with security in this day and age.”

She threw up her hands and shut off the recording function, making sure that she showed the group that it was off. She left it on the table, but then she remembered Derpy’s admonishments from the morning. Exhaling, she tossed it in her bag and kicked the bag across the room.

“All right,” said Gerald. “So since we’re all here to help out with the student government, I’ll just start out by explaining what our role is, and just as important what it’s not. Now, we can’t solve all the problems of the school, and we can’t make the administration do anything, but we can be there to lend a helping hand for anyone who needs it, and, er, make sure that the president’s valuable time isn’t taken up.”

The others laughed at the joke, but Karyn grimaced a little. Gerald’s disaffected cynicism didn’t strike her as very presidential. The rest of the assembled seemed to get into it.

“But,” he continued, “I can promise that if you do have an issue that the brass does need to know about, that we’ll bring it to their attention. So does anyone have any concern that they want to bring up?”

That’s clever thought Karyn. He’s clearly flailing, and he’s not good and conducting a meeting when there’s more than two of us to talk to. So he’s hoping for questions to move it along.

The room remained silent, though, as everyone looked at his or her neighbor, hoping to hear someone else break the ice.

Even Karyn counted off the seconds rather than try to bring anything up. From the back of the room she heard a dim rumble, followed by a familiar deep voice. “Aw, why was the cafeteria closed?!”

Everyone laughed with the exception of Karyn, who desperately tried to make sure no one spotted the source of the voice. Gerald craned his neck to see, so Karyn decided she would have to pick up the thread. “Whoever said that has a point,” she said. “Is that something we can bring up? Food service isn’t exactly the most accommodating division of the school.”

Murmurs of ascent ran through the crowd. At last, someone raised his hand.

“What I don’t like is how they keep running out of tortillas every other day. They charge more for regular sandwiches, and they have more calories.”

More opinions were voiced. “The lines move too slow.” “The specials are terrible.” “The prices are too damn high!” Everyone laughed at the last one, since the speaker punctuated her words with a pointing finger.

Gerald didn’t have a gavel, but he slapped the table to get everyone’s attention. “OK, I’m hearing your concerns, but this is one of the examples that the dean gave me as things that we couldn’t necessarily influence. The food service isn’t run by the college; it’s an outside contractor. They’ve got a contract with the school, not with us. And the dean says that they’ve got to do what they have to in order to make a profit.”

Karyn had had enough. “Hang on a moment. A profit? I’m sure they’d like to make a profit, and that’s fine if they’re planning to run a restaurant. But they’re not. A restaurant wants to be open as long as possible to serve more customers, not cut down hours. A restaurant can’t afford to run out of menu items, because people are coming in to eat what they want. And most importantly, a restaurant can’t have a captive audience. Everyone who lives in the dorms has to buy the meal plan. That’s not what happens with a profit-making restaurant.

“It’s a fine plan for a college cafeteria. We’ll be patient and understanding with our college cafeteria. We’ll put up with the prices and the short hours and the mediocre food, but then don’t come and talk to us about a profit. They earn more on the cheap and overpriced specials than they do on the pre-packaged stuff? Too bad! It’s a college cafeteria, and that means that the students get to spend their credits as they see fit. It’s either-or. They don’t get to charge us on one end and not serve us on the other.”

At some point during this speech, Karyn had stood up, and only when she had finished and heard the burst of applause did she sit down again and let the blood flow to her cheeks. She had forgotten that she was in front of an audience, only wanting to refute Gerald’s by-proxy bureaucrat speech. As he took back over the meeting, Karyn listened for the fade-out of the ovation. The last sound to fade was of a pair of clapping hooves.

Gerald smiled. “Whether or not we can pull it off, that’s the level of passion we want to have at these meetings. Why don’t you write up what you just said as a formal proposal, something that we can vote on and then I’ll take it to the school board?”

Gritting her teeth, Karyn nodded. She didn’t want to have a voluntary homework assignment on top of all her mandatory ones. But this was the downside of being secretary.

Her rant had loosened the tongues of everyone else at the meeting at least, and she did not have to speak again. Instead of short sound-bites, people were actually making points, mostly on the food issue, but also speaking about academics and residential life. Karyn leaned back and made little notes on a piece of paper, while zoning out and looking where she thought Derpy was.

Next meeting I’m going to bring my laptop and type up what everyone says, she thought.

“Why don’t we all take a fifteen-minute break?” said Gerald, “Then we’ll go over some of the formal business. We should really have another vote for officers, so if anyone else wants to be president so that I can sit back and do nothing, now’s the time.”

He smiled as he said it, and Karyn sensed that he had no intention of giving up his position. As everyone left the room, she found Derpy.

It was five minutes before they could find a private room, and Karyn kept a lookout for anyone else coming in.

“So what do you think? Really boring stuff, huh?”

“No, I was fascinated! Everyone was out there talking about their problems and trying to do something about it. We don’t do that in Equestria.”

“That’s because you don’t have any problems,” said Karyn. Before Derpy could contradict her, she said, “What does, for example, the mayor do if she doesn’t listen to citizens groups like this?”

“Preside at store openings, organize events like the Running of the Leaves, and write reports that say everything’s OK.”

“Don’t remind me about reports. I’m not looking forward to typing up my little tangent there.”

“This is where you’re glad to have me, right?” said Derpy.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, after Gerald told you that he didn’t want you to record the meeting, you put your phone in your bag and kicked it over to me. I assumed that meant that you wanted me to do it secretly.”

Karyn sputtered and pointed for a few moments, then gave up. “Derpy, I love you, but I will never get you.”

“That’s what makes it fun.”

“But I was told not to.”

“Because of other people’s privacy,” said Derpy. “And that’s true, but if all you do is skip to the part where you’re talking, and then erase it afterwards, who can complain?”

“I suppose you’re right. Anyway, I’ve got to get back in there. Since I’m still on the board, I have to be responsible and cut my breaks short.”

Derpy restored her spell, and they went back into the meeting room. The break lasted longer than fifteen minutes, as most of the other attendees were using their own cell phones, or just straggling to return. Gerald looked impatient.

“So everyone,” he said, “We’ll break up soon, but I just want to reiterate. You’ve given me a lot of concerns to take to the dean, but I can’t make promises. It may be that the best we can do is to hold the line right here instead of having them take action against us. But that can be a kind of victory.

“Our last order of business is to see if anyone wants to join the board. There’s not a whole lot of work involved…”

Karyn had to withhold a snort.

“…but you do have to show up for meetings. On the other hand, you get to put student government on your resume when you get out of here. Anyone?”

Once again the awkward silence and looking-around, but for one girl in the back who had her hand half-raised, it took an invisible push from an unseen wing to get it in the air.

“Great! Anyone else?”

More hands went up, and Karyn got to tune out again while everyone made their pitch for why they wanted to join. All that remained was for her to tally the votes and make the announcement.

“Well, it actually looks like we have excellent candidates for both secretary and treasurer, so…”

“We don’t want to kick you off,” said Gerald. “Why don’t you pick which job you like better, and let the vote stand for the other one?”

“No, no. I couldn’t make that choice. Two people won the vote, and two people deserve the jobs. I’m a much more sensitive person than you are. And besides, I’ll be able to call myself ‘Secretary and Treasurer Emeritus’.”

***

Freed of the meeting, Karyn’s spirits were much higher as she walked back to her dorm. She wore her Bluetooth, but barely cared if anyone noticed, and looked right at Derpy as she spoke. “That all worked out for the best. One more little report to write, which thanks to you will be a lot easier, and I’m done with this little chapter.”

“And if nothing else, you’ve learned some valuable lessons.”

“Right. I’ve learned that the skills I develop for my personal life might have applications elsewhere, and vice versa. I’ve learned that politics is a game for people who really enjoy it. I’ve learned to watch what I say at parties.”

“Now all we need to do is keep training you to not be obsessed with your phone,” said Derpy.

Karyn quickly put it away, but then pulled it out again. “I’ll never understand the psychology. I took it out to check the time, and forgot to do so. So I had to do it again. Now hurry up. We’ve got something very important to do.”

“What’s that?”

Karyn picked up the pace of her walking. “We’ve got to get back to the cafeteria and stock up on as much as I can. When they hear my report, they may never want to feed us again.”

Author's Notes:

Next week, another tale of friendship!

“It was definitely nice of Princess Celestia to give Dinky the week off as reward for helping us out with the changeling invasion. But did she say why it took her so long?”

“No,” said Derpy. “Maybe she just wanted to give us time to take care of other things, like your cell phone breaking and that whole meeting thing from last week.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m just so anxious, not knowing what my future’s going to be. If I had a thriving business where all I had to do was run the same orders to the same customers, I’d be the happiest unicorn out there.”

“Nuh-uh. You just try it, and see how fast you get bored.”

“I will not!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They sat and drank more coffee for a while, until Dinky raised her ears and looked around. “Do you guys hear something? It sounds like a big to-do outside.”

“I don’t hear anything,” said Karyn.

“My ears are bigger. Let’s check it out.”

All that, plus a mysterious face from the past, coming next week!

Next Chapter: 59: A Dink to the Past Estimated time remaining: 26 Hours, 57 Minutes
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