Hi everypony. My name is Lyra Heartstrings. I live in Ponyville.
About a month ago, after Princess Twilight Sparkle's new palace appeared and the Princess and her friends took over running Ponyville, the Princess created a new system for reporting and responding to emergencies in Ponyville. It's a prototype for a system that, if successful, will be implemented throughout Equestria.
I'm here to tell you that the Princess' emergency response system needs...a lot of work. Mostly due to ponies not really understanding how to use it.
The system needs unicorns in order to cast the relay spells that direct an emergency report to the right response unit—you know, volunteer fire department, Royal Guard, hospital, Princess Twilight, and so forth. Since I don't exactly have what you might call a steady job, I signed up as a dispatch pony. We have four emergency stations, each covering approximately the same amount of territory in Ponyville. I'm responsible for the south side station from noon to eight.
I'd like to share with you some of the emergency reports I get in an average day. In the interest of fairness, I'll also share some where I could have been...a little more helpful to the pony reporting the emergency.
* * * * *
12:30pm
An angry mare galloped up to my station. "YOU GOTTA HELP ME!"
"What's your emergency, ma'am?" I asked.
She waved a sandwich in my face. "YOU SEE THIS PICKLE?" There was a tiny slice of pickle sticking out of the edge of the sandwich.
I blinked. "Yeah, I see that pickle. It's...a nice pickle?"
"I TOLD THAT @^$*#&!&! NO. PICKLES. NO! PICKLES!"
"Uhh...huh," I said. "So...did you try asking them to make you a new sandwich without the pickle?"
"SHE SAID I COULD TAKE THE @^$*#&!&! PICKLE AND SHOVE IT UP MY @^$*#&!&!!"
I sighed. "Ma'am...a restaurant's customer service problems don't really count as an emergency."
"BUT I WANT PRINCESS TWILIGHT TO TURN HER @^$*#&!&! INTO A PICKLE!!"
"Yeah...I don't really see that happening," I said. "And if you were this loud and rude and foul-mouthed to the staff at the restaurant, I can see why they didn't help you."
"@^$*#&!&! YOU!!"
"Please go away, ma'am," I said wearily.
* * * * *
1:15pm
Three fillies stampeded my station, skidding to a halt seconds before they collided painfully with the kiosk.
Knowing these three fillies from their exploits around Ponyville, I dreaded what they might have done. "What's your emergency, girls?" I asked.
Apple Bloom shuffled her hooves. "Umm...we may have...kinda...by accident...set Miss Vinyl's house on fire."
Relaying a dispatch to the Ponyville fire department is the easiest part of this job. Our "fire department" is just the pegasus weather team, so all I have to do is cast a signal flare spell that points in the general direction of the fire. I jumped out of the kiosk, pointed my horn in the direction of Vinyl Scratch's house, and shot a bright, flashy signal flare into the sky. Seconds later, Rainbow Dash and Thunderlane zipped past, a line of grey clouds trailing behind them.
"The fire department is on the way," I told the fillies. "Now, I'm going to need to take down some details of exactly how this fire started..."
* * * * *
2pm
A Hay Burger employee ran up to me. His fast food uniform was covered in heavy red splotches. I assumed he'd had an accident with the ketchup. I was wrong.
"What's your emergency, and would you like hay fries with that?" I asked.
He blinked stupidly at me, then shook his head. "My manager was trampled to death right in front of me!"
I sat up straighter, instantly alert. "Would you repeat that please, sir?"
"I work at Hay Burger, and an angry customer just trampled my boss to death!"
An angry customer? It couldn't be... "Sir, was this customer a particularly loud, foul-mouthed mare? Did the incident involve a pickle slice?"
He nodded, eyes wide. "Are you psychic?" he asked.
"No, that same mare tried to report a pickle emergency a little while ago," I said. I began furiously scrawling an incident ticket. "Has the suspect been subdued?"
He nodded again. "We dogpiled her and tied her to the soda fountain."
"And were any other ponies harmed in the incident?"
"Some bruises and cuts, but I don't really think anypony else was hurt."
"Good." I added that to the incident report. Once I was done, I cast a spell that engulfed the ticket in green flames. It's a difficult spell, one that until recently only Princess Celestia could cast, but it sends letters directly to Princess Twilight by way of Spike the Dragon. "Please return to the crime scene," I told him. "Princess Twilight and the Dusk Guard will arrive momentarily to take the suspect into custody. They'll want to take your statement."
"Thank you," the stallion said before sprinting away.
* * * * *
3:15pm
A wailing brown colt ran up to my station, the propeller on his beanie spinning crazily. "AUWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" he cried. "HELP! HELP! MY MOM'S DYING!"
"Calm down!" I said. "Tell me what happened."
He sniffled. "Well, I was fighting starspiders in the Hall of Hooves when suddenly she started screaming and I ran into the living room and BOOSH!" He gestured expansively with his hooves. "Like a hundred gallons of water just came out of her butt!" He jumped over the counter, grabbed me, and shook me. "MY MOM POPPED AND NOW SHE'S LEAKING TO DEATH!"
I gently pried him off with my magic and smiled at him, patting him on the head with my hoof. "Your mom isn't dying, sweetie," I said gently. "She's about to have a baby."
"She's huh wha?" he asked, blinking.
I giggled. "What's your mom's name?"
"Love Tap," he said distractedly.
I nodded. "I'll alert Ponyville Hospital. A nurse or midwife will be along shortly. For now, go home and take care of your mother."
"She's really gonna be okay?"
"I promise she's just fine," I said, smiling.
"Okay...thanks nice lady," he said, running off.
* * * * *
4:50pm
A pink filly with a tiara perched on her head stormed up to my station. Her eyes were bloodshot and furious, her coat was covered in mud and leaves, and her tail was matted with what appeared to be sticky tree sap.
"What's your emergency?" I asked.
"I DEMAND the immediate removal of all blank flanks from Ponyville!" she screeched. "Look what those BLANK FLANKS DID TO ME!"
"You're...a little dirty," I said. "Go home and take a bath."
"THAT'S NOT THE POINT! THOSE THREE BLANK FLANKS ARE A MENACE TO SOCIETY! I DEMAND PUNISHMENT!"
"So talk to their parents...or whoever takes care of them," I said. "Or your teacher. Unless you're saying they actually did something life-threatening to you." I leaned over the counter. "Do you want me to tell Princess Twilight that three fillies did something to you that could have seriously hurt or killed you?"
The filly considered that. "But...but..." She shook her head. "My daddy's the richest pony in Ponyville! So I can demand those three be thrown out! I—"
"Go home, kid," I said, picking the filly up in my magic and gently tossing her several yards away.
"I'LL HAVE YOUR JOB FOR THIS!" she screeched.
* * * * *
6:15pm
Big Macintosh trotted up to my station.
"What's your emergency?" I asked.
He had a sheepish look on his face. "Umm...Ah don't rightly know how t' put it without offendin' you, miss..."
"I've heard just about everything," I said. "And I need to know exactly what your emergency is."
"Well..." He swallowed. "This...mare...who Ah'm not opposed t' spendin' time with...well, she's in heat, and..."
I blinked. "How exactly is that an emergency?" I asked. "I'm sure at some point you were taught about the birds and the bees. If your marefriend is in heat, then you—"
"I! DEMAND! TO! BE! RUTTED!!" a mare's voice screamed, shaking buildings for several blocks. A dustcloud, ten feet high, was rapidly approaching.
"—run and hide," I advised, eyes wide in terror.
"Eeeyup," Big Macintosh agreed, whinnying as he took off at full gallop. A moment later, a magenta blur thundered past.
* * * * *
7:30pm
A frantic mule ran up to my station, screaming and in tears.
"What's your emergency?" I asked, barely looking up from filing my hoof.
"MY BALLS FELL OFF!!" the mule screamed.
I looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. I gave him a once-over. Indeed, his danglies appeared to be missing, and that entire area of his body was wrapped in a blood-soaked bandage.
"You're a mule," I pointed out. "It's not like they were any use to you anyway."
The mule just stared at me like I'd grown a second horn out of my butt.
I sighed. "I'll arrange to have you teleported to minor emergency care," I said, writing down a dispatch slip and casting the spell to send it on its way. Several seconds later, the screaming mule disappeared.
* * * * *
A half hour after my shift, I trudged wearily through my front door, happy to be home.
"Welcome home, Lyra," my roommate called. "How was your day?"
"@^$*#&!&!," I muttered before collapsing onto the living room sofa.
"Sorry to hear that," she said. She held up a wrinkled, dripping green vegetable. "Pickle?"
Author's Note
This was mostly inspired by yet another woman being arrested for using 911 to report Subway getting her sandwich order wrong.
