What's Yours Is Mine

About ten days ago I had six thousand bits taken from me on my way to visit a friend. He wanted to get some funding to start a talk show, and since he loves to talk about the same stuff we do interviews on, I decided to lend him some money to purchase the equipment. After a few hours on the road a Fillydelphia police pony pulled me over for "suspicion of drunk driving." He said I was dragging my carriage out of my lane of travel. The funny thing is, I keep a camera on my carriage, and when I check it later, I saw that me and my carriage was definitely in the lane of travel the whole time.

The officer gave me a warning after he confirmed I wasn't drunk, and then asked some strange questions. He wanted to know where I was from, and where I was headed. I thought it would be simple, just answer truthfully and be done with it. I told him I was from Manehattan, told him I was visiting a friend in Ponyville. Then he checked asked to check my carriage, and I begrudgingly allowed him to do so. He found the six thousand bits, that were in no way concealed, and somehow concluded that I concealed information about the money I was carrying because I intended to use it to purchase drugs.

He wrapped up both suitcases of bits in plastic to "avoid contamination" and took it into his cart. He told me it would be investigated, and that I would be informed when it was done. I was fairly pissed at the time but there was nothing I could do, so I went on my way to Ponyville to apologize to my friend about the money.

Fast forward to four days ago, when I sent a letter to FPD about the money they so rudely took from me. That's when the anger started to flow. First they told me I could not have it back because it was guilty of being involved in drug trafficking, and then said I had to prove to the court that my money was innocent. How the hell does that work? And furthermore, any officer that believe you have to travel from Manehattan to Ponyville, clearly hasn't heard of the concept of Manehattan University of Visual Arts. It might be unethical, but it's right there.

I was shocked that this could happen, so I did some research, and it turns out court cases against inanimate objects were not uncommon, and also hilariously named. For example, and all of these are true, the case of "Equestria vs. Eight Thouand Eight Hundred and Sixty Bits," the case of "Canterlot vs. An Article... Consisting of 60,0000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Set of Measuring Spoons," and the case of "Equestria vs. Approximately 55,392 Pounds of Milk Cartons."

And under Civil Forfeiture Laws, as I found out the hard way, your stuff has much less protection under the law than you do. All property seized by civil forfeiture is considered guilty, until the owner proves it innocent. So lets hear more of this bullshit tonight as my next interview gets a little bit more personal. I've gotten in contact with a mare who frequently visits a friend in Ponyville, and got stuck in the same predicament as I did.

This audio recording has been adapted and funded by Sofas and Quills and Cloudsdale Printings