Premium Fluffy Ponies (3/27/12)

>Some pet stores offer fluffy ponies treated with fire retardant to make them less flammable, at a five dollar price premium
>Though this almost quadruples the price, many responsible owners consider this a good investment.
>Mostly to keep the fluffy pony from setting fire to the house.
>It's advertised as lasting "for life"
>Really, the treatment only lasts about six months before abrasion and shedding render it ineffective.

>Nobody considers that false advertising, though.

>Work at a large pet store
>Store sells "premium" fluffy pones.
>They're supposed to be a special breed that is as smart and durable as a fluffy pony can be.
>But really, even a large pet store like yours doesn't have space or money to run its own selective breeding program.
>And the farms you buy them from pump 'em out for ridiculously cheap.
>You can't compete with their prices

>The reality is that your employers have set up a room in the back that's filled with relatively dangerous things like bowls of water and unrestricted quantities of food.
>The boss tries out new obstacles from time to time trying to get the two week mortality rate as close to 90% as possible.
>The latest one is a car door from the junkyard rigged upside down on a welded steel stand.
>The electric window is rigged to close and open again every five minutes.
>It beggars belief how many manage to get maimed or chopped in half by it.

>Twice a month, your boss dumps batches of 50 fluffies into the room, which he affectionately refers to as "The Gauntlet"
>Once a day, every day for two weeks you have to go into the room and sweep up the shit and dead fluffies with a dirty push broom.
>The survivors run about your legs crying "Fwiend!" "Pway!", "No feew good" "Hugs?", "Why fwiend no move?", "Hewp Fwuffy!", "No smell pwetty!", "Hurts!", "Fwuffy scawed!" etc.
>Their cries get annoying so you tend to wear headphones and an MP3 player.
>Nobody at work minds, since customers aren't allowed in the back of the store.
>Being a kind and pragmatic soul, you take the sick and injured fluffies out with the dead and break their necks yourself
>They're not going to make it and there's no sense letting the poor things suffer. You make it clean and quick
>On days where you've got two or more defectives with you, the ones you haven't gotten to yet scream and panic, but they're in no condition to escape.

>At the end of the two weeks, the 5 or so survivors are taken out from the gauntlet, cleaned off, coated with fire retardant, and put up for sale.
>At that point, they're already older than the average lifespan of a fluffy pony.
>You're pretty sure the things are damn near untrainable, and they don't actually learn to avoid practical dangers from the gauntlet.
>It probably just weeds out the inattentive and obivious ones.
>Apparently that's basically good enough.

>From the customer satisfaction surveys and repeat customers, the management's best guess is that the "premium" fluffies live an average of about six months, and to the best of their knowledge, there are even some of the very first batch still alive out there as beloved family pets.

>The customer could probably get the same result by buying ten fluffies and letting them kill themselves until only one remains, highlander-style
>But most people don't have the heart. The people who do aren't the kind who'd be interested in an expensive "premium" fluffy anyway.
>Not when you could get a brick of .22 and a dozen regular fluffies for the same price.

>You and a co-worker are prepping the latest batch of premium fluffies for sale
>You already finished washing and drying them. Their extesive experience with water keeps them from drowning.
>They need to be covered in fire retardant to keep them from setting themselves on fire and burning down people's homes.
>They can't learn about fire firsthand because they tend to run around screaming and setting the others on fire, which ruins the lesson.
>The boss gave you a respirator, an apron, some gloves, and a paint can full of an industrial fire retardant.
>Apparently its basically the same stuff they use to keep rayon fabric safe enough to wear.
>The fluffies hate the stuff, since it burns their eyes and mouth and nose.
>You've got the first one, and its squirming all over, mewling "Stingy!", "Huwrts fwffy!", "No like dis gawme!", "Ouchies!", "wan pway sumfing else", "Pwease!"
>You've got a good grip on it. The things can be hard to hold, since they can kind of squirm around inside their own fluff.
>Kind of like how a racoon can sort of twist about inside its own loose skin
>You're making progress, but the fluffies' resistance isn't helping.
>You're keeping the others in a terrarium while you work on the first. They can't climb its smooth lexan sides.
>You try telling them its so they can be safe to play later, but they're too dumb to understand.

>Boss comes in, sees that you're having some trouble.
>He goes out to the front of the store, and comes back with one of the regular fluffies in a small metal cage its fur is caked with crap, but thankfully you can't smell it through the respirator.
>Boss shuts the door behind him and sets the cage on top of a metal foot stool and then pulls the battery out of the room's smoke detector
>Tells the fluffy ponies that he's going to play a game
>He pulls out a long barbecue lighter, and pulls the trigger. The fluffies stare at the little blue flame. One or two comment on how "pwetty" it is.
>Then he takes the flame to the belly of the fluffy pony you just got done coating in fire retardant.
>After a second or two, the hair in direct contact with the flame starts burning. The fluffy pony can't see around its own fluff and doesn't even notice.
>Boss lets go of the trigger and pats the flame out with his free hand.
>"Now little guys, do you see why you should play the fireproof game?
>The dumb little critters don't understand of course, and respond "No wan pway!", "No wan Ouchies!", "Scawed!"

>Unphased, your boss takes the lighter to the dirty fluffy he brought in.
>"This is what happens if you don't play"
>He clicks the trigger, and the critter bursts into flames faster than it can realize it.
>It starts screaming and clumsily running about in the small cage. "Ouchies!" "why hurt fwuffy!?"
>Mercifully the respirator blocks out most of the smell of burning hair and flesh and shit.
>The other fluffies look on in shock and terror
>The burning fluffy's subcutaneous fat is melting and wicking into its innermost layer of fur, sustaining the flames. its eyes begin to melt.
>eventually it dies, writhing in pain on the floor of the cage.
>Boss puts it out with an old type AB fire extinuisher.
>"Now behave or you're next, ya lil' blighters"
>Most of them are too shocked or terrified after that to put up much resistance as you cover the rest in fire retardant.

>Later you ask your boss why he set the fluffy on fire.
>Tells you it was too disgusting and shit-caked to sell, and he buys the regulars for 65 cents a head from the farm.
>Even though it's probably eaten about its own worth in feed by now, there's no reason to keep it if it won't sell. Sunk costs fallacy and all.
>He tells you that at the minimum wage he's paying, if it saved the two of you just five minutes, it was worth twice as much as the fluffy.

>Makes sense.

>A customer requrests a "fireproof" legless fluffy.
>You can't see why anyone would want that, but he's paid the money and there's no store policy against it.
>You take one of the amputated fluffies by the neck and take it to the back of the store as it babbles inanely
>Your co-worker asks what you're doing.
>You tell him you're fireproofing it at a customer's request
>He tells you to pass it to him, so you do.
>He grabs it around the abdomen and holds it over the trash can. It's still babbling.
>He gives it a good squeeze. It yelps out in pain and terror. He squeezes harder and it deficates and urinates.
>it's over the trash can, so it doesn't make a mess
>"What the heck man?" you ask
>Fluffy pony is crying and screaming. It would be struggling, but there's not a lot it can do without legs.
>"Just a little trick I picked up." He says. "Now it won't crap all over you while you coat it with the retardant."
>"The trick is to squeeze just hard enough. A little bruising and internal bleeding doesn't matter, they're so fluffy and inbred nobody can tell. But you don't want to kill the thing either."

>Co-worker probably just saved you a change of shoes
>Whatabro

(Originally posted by anonymous author(s) on 4chan's /mlp/; thread 845948, 2012 March 26-27. Removed an unnecessary line about "nitrocellulose fur". Specific numbers on pony lifespan, costs and prices shouldn't be taken too seriously as they're rarely thought-out or consistent between stories.)