You Can't Always Get What You Want
A/N: Hello, everybody. This is Torsten der Milch, out with a one-off story about a certain pony (with some thanks to JackalFoxx [JackalFoxx, you'll know what I mean if you read one of your old reviews for The Defenders of Equestria: The Beginning]), and her treck through a horrible day. I decided to write this story because yesterday morning, while leaving to go to school, I flushed my toilet, not knowing there was a clog somewhere in the pipeline. Being the lazy teenager that I am, I simply told my dad the toilet was clogged, and left for school. Well, as it turns out, when I got home, my dad had a Shopvac out, sucking water out of the carpet from the kitchen all the way down to his bedroom (ya, I know). We got some guys down here to give us a diagnosis, and it turns out I may not be living in my house for anywhere from two weeks to two MONTHS! This is one of the first stories I have written that has a noticilbe theme, and I think you'll all catch on to what it is, once you read the story (it's also an allegory, so look for that, too).
Enjoy
Torsten der Milch
It was a beautiful morning in Ponyville: Celestia's sun was shining brightly on the spring day, and all the flowers were in full bloom. The sunlight was giving the flowers a brilliant and colorful hue. All accept in one area; under a small lemon tree in a pony's backyard. Now, this wasn't any ordinary pony's backyard; this was a certain yellow, adorable unicorn, that I am pretty sure you all know and love.
A shrill, metalic clinging rose through the air, until a soft yellow hoof banged it, shutting it off. The source of the hoof rose, revealing a yellow unicorn mare, with an absolutely adorable manecut. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and got out of bed. She used the facility, flushing with a loud swooshing sound that seemed to stick with you. She opened the bathroom door, only to reveal a very pleading looking cat.
"I should probably feed you, shouldn't I," she said aloud. She used her magic to put the cat on her back and walked off to the kitchen. There, she let the cat off, and proeeded to look for her food.
"It should be here somewhere..." she said, looking in a cupboard. Suddenly, a heavy mass fell on her. Or, should I say, it was a bunch of heavy masses! She receeded from the cupboard to reveal a plethora of metal cans. Closer inspection would reveal that they were cat food cans. The unicorn looked up to reveal an open cupboard, and a very guilty looking yellow cat.
"Lemonade, you silly cat!" she scolded, with a light heart. "You know not to open cupboards!" The cat meowed pleadingly, nodding towards a food can, followed by a can opener.
"OK, let's feed you," said the pony. She opened the can, dumped it on a platter, and set it on the floor, and let the cat at it. Just then, her telephone rang.
"Hello?" she said, after (obviously) picking it up.
"Lemon! I was wondering where you were! Why aren't you here yet?" said the voice on the other end of the line.
"Oh, no!" Lemon cried. "I must've slept in! I hate Daylight Savings! I'll be there in a few minutes, Hand Grenade! Don't let Crystal out of your sight!" and she slammed the phone on the receiver. She then ran out of the house, putting on a nice hat on the way out.
The Daylight Savings Festival was a very gay encounter: there were games, rides, food vendors, muscians, and a huge reception. The reception was the highlight of the endeavor: drinks, food, music, and a speech from Princess Celestia. Everyone in Ponyville was there. Everyone, except Lemon Blossom.
Lemon Blossom ran through town to get to the reception, where she was supposed to meet up with her friends, Hand Grenade and Crystal Meth. Lemon ran, and ran, and ran, all the way to the town square, where the reception was being held. She got there and looked for her friends.
And found nothing.
"Hand Grenade!" she called out. "Crystal! Where are you guys?" All she saw was a large crowd of ponies, surrounding a choir singing sad words to a happy tune.
Suddenly, a maculine voice (but not too masculine) called out "Look out!" followed by a blue blur, screaming something incomprehensible.
"Crystal, get back here!" came the masculine voice agian.
"No! Noooo!" cried the blue blur.
"What's going on here!?" screamed Lemon Blossom.
"Lemon, thank Celestia you're here!" said a gray earth pony stallion, the source of the masculine (but not too masculine) voice. He had a dark black mane and tail styled in a mullet, with an orange streak running through both, and his irises were bright orange.
"What's she taken now?" Lemon sighed.
"Meth," he responded monotonously.
"OK," she responded, also monotonously. Lemon then walked around, like a cat looking for a place to lie down. When she found her spot, she sat there, waiting, until the blue blur came within 6 feet of her. She caught it with magic, revealing it to be a blue pegasus pony with a pink mane, and a cutie mark of a marijuana leaf.
"Lemmego! Lemmegoo-ho-hooooo!" cried the blue pegasus.
"I'll let you go when you stop being such a lunatic, Crystal," demanded Lemon Blossom. The blue pegasus, Crystal, looked up at her with big, yellow, innocent eyes.
"Crystal!" Lemon scolded.
"OK..." Crystal sighed, defeated.
"Finally! She's flying around like a maniac for an hour!" the gray stallion complained.
"And she was doing it because...?"
"I maaay've set off a firecracker, spooking her..."
"I thought so!" Lemon concluded triumphantly. "Hand Grenade, you know that stuff is dangerous, especially in a crowd!"
"That's why I did it on a building!" Hand Grenade said proudly, pointing to a small shack with a smouldering hole in the roof.
Lemon just gave him a blank stare.
"It turned out to be not such a great idea..." Hand Grenade admitted.
"Ya think?"
"Come quickly, everybody, the Princess's speech is about to start!" called an enthusiastic voice belonging to a young schoolboy.
"Come on, guy's, we don't wanna miss thi-," Hand Grenade said, only to be cut off by the speeding blue blur that was Crystal Meth.
Lemon Blossom couldn't help but giggle. "Come on, Pyro. Let's go watch a speech."
The speech was to be given on the stage in front of town hall, as usual. The speech usually consisted of two main points: what Daylight Savings did for the economy, and a minorly detailed history of it. Today was no different. Celestia got onto the podium and started like this:
"Good morning, my little ponies! Today, I'll be giving a speech on Daylight Savings (as usual).
"Daylight Savings is a method of increasing the working hours during the day, by increasing the..."
She went on about how Daylight Savings was wonderful, much to the ponys' boredom. So much so for some ponies, that they decided to start small talk with their friends.
"Lemon. Hey, Lemom. Lemon. Lemon. Hey!" Crystal was poking Lemon Blossom in the shoulder, trying to get her attention. "Hey, Lemon. Lemon..."
"What!" Lemon snapped, earning a harsh 'shhh!' from a fellow audience member. "Sorry! Crystal, what do you want?"
Crystal sat there for a minute, staring, until she said, "Hi."
"Hello, Crystal."
"Hi," she repeated.
"If you don't have anything useful to say, please don't say anything at all!" Lemon requested, mildly irritated.
Crystal stared for a minute, and then said, "Hi."
"Oh, sweet Celestia..."
"Shhh!" called a random audience member.
"Sorry!" Lemon called out, just a little too loudly, as it gained more shushes.
Celestia continued on with her speech, but Lemon couldn't hear it because Crystal was demanding animal crackers throughout the entire thing.
"Just one?" she said.
"Crystal, I don't have any animal crackers!" Lemon responded.
"Pleeease?"
"Crystal, are you even listening to me
"Yes, Blorba the alien monster."
Lemon sighed and just ignored her. That is, until she started bugging Hand Grenade.
"Crystal, I don't have any animal crackers!"
"Just one! I'll give it back!"
"Crystal!"
"Please?
"No."
"Pleeeease?" Crystal broke out the puppy-dog eyes.
"Crystal, no."
"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-"
"ENOUGH!"
Lemon's shouting was loud enough to disrupt the Princess. She had attracted the attention of everyone in the square, which she did not want for what she was about to say.
"Crystal, there are no animal crackers! Will you please quit asking for them!? It's annoying, almost as bad as Loud Mouth, only he swears!"
"But, all I wanted were some animal cracker-"
"There are no animal crackers, Crystal! Where here do you see any animal crackers!? Huh!?"
"Lemon..." tears were welling up in Crystal's eyes.
"And don't you dare just say 'Hi' to me this time!" That was it! Crystal Meth flew off crying, to an unknown destination(s). This was when the error of her actions finally hit Lemon, like a brick.
"Oooh, crud..."
Lemon got scolded many times by seemingly all the witnesses. This caused her to start crying, and she ran off, pushing ponies in her way as she went, and dropping her hat.
Lemon ran all the way back to her house crying. She had just possibly ruined her best friendship, and definetly her honor. She opened the door, only to find a very disgruntled Lemonade waiting for her.
"Lemonade, what you want!?" she said between sobs. Lemonade walked over to the hallway, and over to the bathroom door. Lemon Blossom followed her, noticing that the carpet was moist. It was getting progessively worse as she made her way to the bathroom. 'Oh, no' she thought. She walked up to the door, and opened it, releasing a large tidal wave into her home.
"That's disgusting..." she commented.
After the tsunami had cleared, Lemon could hear more running water. So, she entered the bathroom, and looked at the toilet, her jaw dropping. Her toilet was acting like an ornate porcelain fountain; literally, it was spewing water up rythmically every ten seconds.
"Well, I'd better plug this up," she said, reaching for a towel. The towel was soaking wet, as with everything else in the room. She shoved it into the toilet bowl, clogging the toilet from spewing any more. Just as she was about to leave to get help cleaning her house, the toilet bowl caught fire, causing her to freak out.
"How does that happen!"
Lemon got a pitcher of water to pour on the fire, but it didn't work. 'Because the water is burning!' she realized. She then got some baking soda and snuffed out the fire, but with a toll: she had used all her baking soda, and her arms were mildly seared.
"Why mee-he-heee!" she started crying again, writhing in the toilet water. She cried for twenty minutes, only stopping because the phone rang.
"'sniff' Hello?" she answered.
"Lemon, it's Hand Grenade!" answered the phone. "Get over to Sugarcube Corner, quick! Crystal's gone crazy!"
"What's she doing!"
"No time to explain! Just get over here!" and the line went dead.
"Hand Grenade!" Lemon cried. "HAND GRENADE! I'm coming, Hand Grenade!" and she was off.
The area around Sugarcube Corner was a mess: royal guards were everywhere, civilians were busy watching, and Crystal Meth was up on the tower, holding what looked like a cross between a TV remote and a bed sheet, wrapped in bailing wire. Ponies were either trying to get a closer look, or run away, which conflicted with each other, creating a sort of chaos.
Lemon Blossom ran faster than she had ever run before, once she heard that Crystal was in trouble. Despite the morning's encounter, she loved Crystal like a sister. She was worried sick. The fact that she didn't know what happened to Hand Grenade after the line went dead didn't help, but it did make her run faster.
Lemon arrived at Sugarcube Corner, only to be greeted with chaos. She couldn't let that stop her, however. She must find Hand Grenade! How, you may ask? Like any other intelligent person would do!
"Hand Grenade! Where are you!?" When that didn't work, she tried calling louder. When that didn't work, she tried following the scent of gunpowder. When that didn't work, she tried calling for him again.
"Hand Grenade!"
"Lemon!"
'Finally' She had found him. He was flailing his forelegs like a maniac, trying to get her attenion.
"Hand Grenade, what's going on?"
"Look for yourself," and he pointed to the tower. There, Lemon could see a blue and pink thing with a shiny thing in its foreleg.
"What is she holding!?" Lemon queried.
"Uuuh... a napalm fueled incendiary bomb," Hand Grenade said, guilt dripping from his voice.
"A WHAT!" shrieked Lemon.
"She's threatening to set it off if we don't give you up to her," Hand Grenade informed.
"Say what?"
"She wants to take you hostage."
"Move over!" and she shoved him out of her way, as she made her way closer to the sweets store.
"Crystal! What're you doing up there!?" Lemon cries, breaking through the last layer of ponies in the crowd.
"I don't wanna live in a world where my best friend hates me!" she replied.
"Crystal, I don't hate you!" Lemon admitted. "You're like my sister! I've known you since we were ten! You helped me discover my special talent! Don't you remember that?"
Crystal just sat there, contemplating life, the universe, and everything. When she figured out the answer, she came down from the building, taking the bomb with her. The bystanders cheered for such an anticlimactic ending to what could have been a horrible tragedy.
"Lemon, did you really mean that?" Crystal asked as she approached her friend.
"Of course I did! You're my best friend, Crystal, no matter what!" Lemon answered, and they hugged, living (mostly) happily ever after.
You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need.
The End