There Pinkie Pie sat, examining the length of streamer that would soon go into her party cannon. "9.237 meters of robin's egg streamer, 219 grams. Load in section A5 over the collapsible punch bowl. 5.620 meters peach streamer, 112 grams. Load in section B7 over the enchanted ice-cream cake. 7.301 meters vermillion streamer..." Pinkie kept on reciting various lengths, volumes, and masses of each new party material to be put in her cannon, loading it in preparation for the town hall she was going to visit today, and the party her Pinkie Sense told her she was going to throw.
Finished with loading her cannon, Pinkie checked and double checked her figures, comparing the lengths of streamer and placement of them in the cannon to her detailed blueprints of the town hall. "7.5 meters in radius by 4 meters in height for the lower area, with 3 meter radius and 7 meter height for the upper. No streamers set up to bisect the room?" Pinkie checked her calculations with her slide rule, ticking off each accurate calculation with a pink pencil. "Check."
Pinkie then moved on to the final part of her loading of her cannon, the confetti. "Necessary muzzle velocity for all party supplies to hit their assigned spots? 17.33 m/s. Best use the low density, high spread confetti." Pinkie pulled out several neat 'cakes' of confetti, set up for maximum effectiveness for the party at hand. "1, 2, 3, ... 9.3 cakes of confetti." Pinkie proclaimed, shaving off .7 of a cake of confetti. "This party will be splenderiferous! It will be!" Pinkie Pie went back over her calculations, filled up the air tank on her cannon, and then finally went to bed, a couple of hours before her job as a baker would call her to wakefulness, and a party.
"My cannon misfired! That streamer was supposed to be at position alpha charlie, and was at position alpha delta instead!" She slammed her hoof into her skull "Where did I mess up?! Did I use too much force? Too much streamer? A hair too much confetti?! Where is it?!" She looked over her notebook full of calculations, checking each one, marking off on her own work. "One minus sign here, a lost digit here, and I've found it!" Pinkie put her face in her hooves, and began to cry at her failure to make a perfect party, decorations in all the right places, every pony perfectly smiling at the music, food, decorations, and games. "That one streamer! I'm sure that's why Dashie had a frown on her face! She noticed that one streamer out of place. Come to think of it, Twilight and Rarity had a frown too!" Pinkie sobbed into her hooves. "They know I'm a failure, they know I'm not the best Party Pony!"
The pink mare continued to cry into her hooves, and then looked up at the calender on her wall. Gummie's Birthday was in two days! Pinkie knew exactly what she was going to do, starting tomorrow. She was going to plan and execute her most perfect party ever! "I'll need to remeasure my walls again, make sure that the proportions for the cake are absolutely perfect, check the color guides on my streamers to make sure they were dyed properly, make up a few batches of confetti, oh, and make sure the curvature of the balloons is perfect too.
Pinkie stayed up several more hours, measuring, tinkering, and calculating how to make her next party her best ever.
The next evening, Pinkie began to set up decorations for her pet's party. She measured out streamer to the micron, confetti to the microgram, and mixed up a cake in proportions so precise no pony could deny her mastery of how to throw a party. "I'm going to do it, Gummy! I'm going to throw you the most perfect party ever! I've invited all of the guests, set up the batter for the cake to be baked, and even wrapped your gifts. But just in case I messed up..." Pinkie tore off the wrapping paper, measured it out perfectly, and proceeded to re-wrap her precious pet's gift.
Pinkie picked up her loving alligator, and squished him against her body. "I love you Gummy, and you're going to love your party! I guarantee it!"
Gummy of course merely matched the blue gaze of her eyes with his violet ones, twitched his mouth a little, and then he proceeded to lightly nip her shoulder with his toothless little mouth.
Feeling the love, Pinkie set him down, and proceeded to get a few hours of sleep that evening.
"They loved it, Gummy!" Pinkie exclaimed, sweeping up the confetti from Gummy's earlier party. "I knew that this was going to be the most perfect party ever!" She crowed as she swept up her lovable scaly companion in a hug. She danced around and around with him in her arms, a giant grin on her face all the while. Suddenly, she stopped, and gently put the alligator on the ground.
"Gummy, if that was the perfect party, then how am I going to top it?! I measured everything to so many significant digits! They don't even make measuring tools more accurate than that... At least not ones that I could get without paying a fortune to a research company to buy one." She paced and fretted, more like her friend Twilight than she would ever admit. "What to do, what to do."
During her pacing, she noticed that Gummy had flipped himself over on to his back, exposing his belly to his pink owner. "That's it! I've got it!" She proclaimed to herself, glad that she had had the foresight to get her room noise dampened. "I'm going to invert everything about this party, so that it's completely different from yesterday, yet my calculations will still be all correct! Gummy, you're a genius!" Gummy blinked up at her from his prone position, and continued to lay there.
Pinkie Pie put on a cup of coffee, and started to put together the party. "Oh, the date!" It occurred to her she didn't have a date planned for it. "I'll just have it tomorrow." She looked down at her watch. "Excuse me, today." She started to laugh, and ended up snorting.
"Okay, I'll need 17.56543 grams of the blue confetti, 19.32311 grams of the green..." Pinkie continued to list of numbers and measurements based on her precise calculations late into the night.
An exhausted Pinkie Pie came back to her still decorated room that evening, a random bag of flour, an overturned pile of rocks, a bucket of turnips, and a ball of lint next to or wearing party hats all set up. "My second perfect party wasn't so perfect, huh Gummy?" Gummy merely looked at her and nipped her leg. "Yep, it sure wasn't. I'm glad my friends pulled me out of that funk, and even said they'd try and help me with my perfectionist streak."
Pinkie Pie sighed, and wearily trudged over to her light switch. "Good night, Gummy" she yawned. "I'm going to get some decent sleep tonight, and avoid throwing a party for a day or two. I need the rest, or I'll get burned out and end up throwing one of these again, and I think you and I can both agree that we don't want that." Gummy nipped her mane in agreement. With that, she put her head on her pillow, and was soon fast asleep.
Author's Note
This was a quick one shot that came to me as I was helping set up for my nephew's first birthday party not too long ago. Hope you all enjoyed, and as always, please comment.
