It was either from this Friendship is Magic or the original My Little Pony series that I learned that Pinkie Pie was of the race of ponies known in Equestria as earth ponies. Whichever it was, one of my more memorable experiences with Pinkie Pie was her first experience with the common cold, perhaps a week after she’d arrived.

I remember it felt like an hour or so after I’d gone to sleep that I was awakened by something poking me in the back.

By this time, Pinkie Pie’s vocabulary had grown quite a lot; and, while she still whinnied when she talked, she was still surprisingly understandable.

At any rate, I rolled over toward the pink pony and asked, “Yeah, Pinkie, what’s wrong?”

I recognized the emotionless voice of Diane as she said, “Pwease, I deed heop.”

Well, just hearing her voice and how she was talking, I knew something was wrong. So, I sat up on the edge of the bed, turned on the light, then turned to Pinkie Pie. And, I couldn’t help but laugh at what I saw.

I had no party favors in my house at all, but it seemed that somehow Pinkie Pie had gotten the end of two spiral-rolled lines of streamers stuck in each of her nostrils. The streamer in her right nostril was yellow, while the one in her left was blue. She looked like she had a long, skinny handlebar mustache of two different colors under her nose. And, Diane’s straight hair didn’t help matters any.

I pulled the streamers out of Pinkie Pie’s nose, and I noticed that the ends that’d been in her nose seemed somehow digested, or something like that.

Then she sneezed, and confetti flew all over, accompanied by a quiet, high-pitched whistling sound.

I think it was then that I realized that the streamers were probably not streamers at all, but perhaps the pink earth pony’s mucus. I looked at her side of the bed, and saw it covered with blue and yellow confetti and shorter streamers. I felt her forehead, and it was unusually warm. Whatever was happening to her, it stopped being funny at that point.

Still, when I stopped laughing, Diane said to me, “Pinkabeda thakes you fo waughig. We deed mo heop.”

I threw the long streamers in the nearest garbage container, then began to remember something in the scriptures about a grain that would be good for horses. I went to my study room, found my scriptures, and checked in the Doctrine and Covenants, searching for the verse in section eighty-nine that mentioned it. And, sure enough, there it was, in verse seventeen: “... and oats for the horse.”

I would later find out, from the Magic is Friendship series, as well as from Pinkie Pie herself, that Equestrian ponies didn’t like being referred to as horses. But, at this moment, it didn’t matter to me. Modern scriptures had given me the information I needed to help Pinkie Pie return to good health. But, it’d also been my observation that horses like eating apples. So, I went to the kitchen to see if I could find some oatmeal and apples. The bad news was I’d run out of oatmeal. The good news was, since I’d last gone shopping, a couple days ago, I did still have some apples in the fridge.

When I returned to my room, I found Pinkie Pie, still being controlled by Diane, trembling where I’d left her when I went in search of some information on how I could help her. I knelt on her side of the bed and, stroking her back, I asked, “Are you alright?”

I know I said that what was happening wasn’t funny anymore. Well, it wasn’t funny for the time she had none of those streamers hanging from her nose. But more streamers had developed, and the scene was just as funny as the first pair of streamers had been.

Diane answered, “C-c-code.” And, she started coughing, expelling more confetti and streamers.

After telling her to stay put, I went into the bathroom and got some bath towels, which I brought to her; and I wrapped her up in them. Then, when she at least wasn’t trembling as much, I called my parents on the phone and told them that Pinkie Pie was sick. Yes, I did laugh over the phone, which I’m sure made it sound like I wasn’t taking the matter seriously. I asked them if they had any oatmeal, and they said they’d come with the oatmeal as soon as possible. I’m also sure I said something about them having to see Pinkie Pie for themselves to understand why I was laughing. Who wouldn’t, after seeing the little pink pony with streamers hanging out of her nostrils?

I assured Diane that I’d take good care of both her and Pinkamena, and I would get her through her cold.

Not long afterwards, I heard a knock at the door; so I left Pinkie Pie and went through the hallway up the stairs, and to the front door to meet my parents as they came in. I led them to the dining room where they produced a container of oatmeal, and I went into the kitchen to get a bowl. After that, I went back into the dining room and scooped some of the oatmeal into the bowl, then went back into the kitchen and added some water to it, then put it in the microwave for a few minutes while I took an apple from the fridge, brought it to a nearby counter, and, after producing a knife, cut up the apple while the oatmeal was cooking in the microwave. By the time the oatmeal was done, so were the apple slices, ready to go into the oatmeal. After that, I dumped the apple slices into the oatmeal, mixed them in with the spoon I'd used for mixing the oatmeal, then took the oatmeal and apple slice mixture, spoon and all, and, with my parents, went into my bedroom to feed the mixture to Pinkie Pie.

By the time I’d gotten back to the pink pony, she’d stopped trembling, and was evidently sleeping.

I gently nudged her with a hand to wake her up, at which point she stretched and looked at me, eyeing the bowl of much I was holding.

I said, “I made this for you. It’s oatmeal and apple slices.”

Evidently not even mom or dad could deny the absurdity of the pink pony having streamers hanging from her nostrils.

Then, as Diane looked from the bowl of oatmeal and apple slices back up to me, she said, “You bwess, den I eat.”

One daily habit I’d gotten into, especially in the presence of Pinkie Pie, was offering a blessing on the food I'd prepare for each meal before eating it. She’d even recognized the sacredness of the action by putting her front hooves together and closing her eyes during the prayer. Now, she was asking me to bless this mixture of oatmeal and apple slices. I figured, why not?

So, as all of us in the room closed our eyes and bowed our heads, or so I assume, I prayed over the mixture, asking Heavenly Father to bless it so it’d help Pinkie Pie recover her health. Then, after that, I used the spoon in the mixture to scoop small amounts of it and serve to the pink pony.

Evidently Diane had full confidence in my prayer over the food, as she readily accepted the spoonfuls of oatmeal-covered apple. Then, after chewing and swallowing a few spoonfuls, she pushed the hand I’d been holding the spoon with away with a hoof and said, “Weabe bow he-o. I sweep now, eat mo waita.”

Deciding Diane probably had the right idea, I put the spoon back in the bowl, set the bowl on an end table next to the bed where Pinkie could reach it, then turned to my parents; and we made our way out of the room. Of course, before I left the pink filly alone, I pulled out those streamers that had formed in her nostrils.

Mom and dad lead the way to the kitchen, where, once we were settled down, after I’d thrown the streamers away, we talked about various things, including why Pinkie Pie had streamers hanging from her nostrils. We must’ve talked for hours, until the kitchen door opened, and Pinkie Pie, now being controlled by Pinkamena, entered the room and put the empty bowl she was carrying on the ground in front of her. Looking up at me with a sad look on her face, she asked, “You forgive Pinkamena? I scared. I not want feel pain. Not want die.”

Again that rush.

I turned to her and picked up the bowl and placed it on the table. Then, I bent down and picked up Pinkie Pie under her forelimbs and placed her on my lap. With the little pink filly in that position, I said, “It’s alright. Getting sick for the first time is a scary experience. But, Diane had the right idea turning to me. It’s because of her that you’re still alive, and back in good health.”

I seem to remember it was mom that said we should take Pinkie Pie to the veterinary clinic as soon as possible to have her checked out and make sure she was fully recovered from her cold. And, after I cleaned the bowl Pinkie had used and put it in the drying tray, that’s what we did.

There at the clinic we got confirmation that Pinkie Pie had recovered surprisingly quickly from a cold. They just couldn’t explain the streamers. Oh, well. I could only theorize that, in Equestria, where Pinkie Pie had come from, ponies sick with a cold probably expelled mucus in what would look like streamers to us humans. And, since Pinkie Pie provided me with my only experience with sick Equestrian ponies, that remains my theory to this day.

When we got back home, it was morning; and mom and dad just dropped me and Pinkie Pie off at our house and headed to their own home.

In the mean time, I took the opportunity to remove the top cover from the bed and put it in the washing machine, then put a clean one in its place.

As Pinkie Pie went back to sleeping on her side of my bed, I, finding myself no longer tired, decided to have a look at the My Little Dashie story from that CD.

I have to say, I was surprised. As it turns out, it seems that Rainbow Dash had also caught a cold in the care of her human. But, the thing that especially surprised me was how he treated it. He actually gave chicken soup to an equine, a herbivore. I mean, who, in their right mind, feeds a herbivore meat? Carrots, sure. Apples, no problem. Grains, especially oats, of course. But, chicken? Or, for that matter, any kind of meat? It’s no wonder Rainbow Dash threw it back up again. I can only guess that all she knew was she was being fed something disgusting along with the vegetables drowned in water.

Of course, on the other hand, maybe Rainbow Dash’s human had no idea, had no reference, on how to take care of a sick equine. Judging by the human-like features and behaviors of the ponies in the Friendship is Magic cartoon series, it wouldn’t be all that difficult to consider the idea that they might be omnivorous. But, as a monkey dressed in silk is still a monkey; in that same way a pony with human features is still a pony, and thus, still a herbivore.

At the time, I had considered reading the story of the azure pegasa’s experiences to Pinkie Pie. But, I wasn’t sure she was ready for it yet. I wasn’t sure how much of it she’d be able to understand. And, besides, this was the first chance I’d taken to read the story. I figured I should read it all the way first, then maybe I’d have a better idea of what I was reading to Pinkie Pie.

While I did get around to reading the story with Pinkie Pie, it wasn’t until maybe a year or so after her first experience with getting sick. But, I’ll get to that later. In the mean time, I’ll tell you this much. Whenever Pinkie Pie got sick, except for the last time, it was always Diane that took control. I’ve had to wonder if the reason was because Pinkamena was always afraid of dying, or if she was also afraid of me giving her bad-tasting or painful medicine. Or, perhaps it was just that Diane was always better equipped to handle the lack of control that went along with being sick. Whatever the reason, that’s how it always worked out. And, Diane always turned to me to help her through Pinkie’s sicknesses.

That’s not to say, though, that sickness was the only reason Diane took control of Pinkie Pie. Until Pinkamena and Diane developed the code between them that in Equestria was evidently known as the Pinkie sense, Diane would take control of Pinkie Pie when she sensed some kind of danger, and needed to get her out of it as quickly as possible. And the episode, “Feeling Pinkie Keen,” was a great guide for the three of us in figuring out how to communicate the dangers Diane would notice, and would have to inform Pinkamena about, dangers that she, that is Pinkamena, might not notice. And, I was honored to become a part of the team that kept Pinkie Pie safe from harm.