Good afternoon, ma’am. Lovely day, isn’t it? Thank Celestia for that! I’d like to tell you a story about where I’m coming from, if that’s all right. See, it wasn’t long ago that I was broke and starving and looking for work anywhere that could take me. And I’d like you to know about the day that all changed.
Earlier that day, I'd been staring nervously across the table as my pitiful resumé was being considered like I'd consider a meal of stale bread. Well, maybe not quite like that; I’d gotten pretty used to stale bread, all things considered, but this mare was showing outright displeasure mixed in with the predictable amusement. I guess she must have realized I was just wasting her time and shouldn’t have gotten an interview there to begin with. What can I say? I’m pretty good at getting interviews, as you may have noticed, ma’am.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Scootaloo,” she said, obviously not sorry at all. The mare’s name was Proper Placement, the hiring manager at Pastie Petals, a club specialized in… well, I don’t need to spell it out for you, right, ma’am? It wasn’t a knocking shop, anyway, not that time. Let’s just say I was applying to pretty much anyplace with a door by then. “It’s just,” she continued, “I’m afraid you have misread our help wanted posters. We’re looking for a mare with great knockers, not…”
“...not a mare who’s a great knocker,” I finished for her.
“Well… yes.”
I looked around the hiring office as I got ready to take my leave. It didn’t look like such a bad place, really… clean walls, nice plants, and sturdy doors. Big, sturdy, gorgeous doors, the kind that would probably really reverberate against a properly placed hoof, none of that plywood nonsense. Not that I’d ever get a chance to find out with those particular doors, it looked like, but a mare could dream. Could do precious little else, ma’am, but she could dream.
“Don’t despair, Ms. Scootaloo,” said Proper Placement as I walked away. “There are plenty of jobs out there for an enterprising mare like yourself. Just…” – and she got that tone of voice I’d grown to loathe, that voice when somepony’s about to say something they think is going to be absolutely hilarious – “just don’t knock yourself out trying!”
“Wow,” I said, resisting the urge to attack her somehow. “Never heard that one before.”
It wasn’t always that way, you know, ma’am. My life was full of promise and mystery and adventure when I was young, before fate decided to knock me for a loop and – gah, Luna damn it, now I’m doing it too!
The point is, ma’am, life was different back in the day. I had two great friends, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, blankflanks like me, and together we tried to figure out our special talents. Ziplining, tiger taming, tiger fleeing… if it was exciting, we tried it. I don’t know if any of us seriously believed that we’d all manage to get our cutie marks in the same thing all at once, but it was worth a shot, and it sure beat homework. We were pretty much inseparable, whether the ponies around us liked it or not, so it was no surprise when Sweetie Belle one day sent for me and some other ponies to come visit her about something. I don’t totally remember who else was there that day – Pinkie Pie, I know, and some others – but I remember the important parts. You’ve heard of Pinkie Pie, right? Celestia knows, everypony’s heard of Pinkie Pie.
She was at her parents’ house that day, not the Carousel Boutique where her sister worked, and we all headed over there to check it out. The note was super vague, and it was obvious she was trying to be clever about something or other. I loved Sweetie, I guess, but ‘clever’ was never her strongest point. Anyhow, somepony knocked on her door, and there was no answer. We weren’t sure what to do next, but I thought that maybe she just hadn’t heard us because we hadn’t knocked loud enough. “Let me try!” I said. “I’m a good knocker.”
Celestia, but I was impatient back then. But if there’s one thing a life of barely making it from temp job to temp job does, it’s teach patience.
I walked confidently forward and gave that door the best two or three raps it had ever had. Really, it was a beautiful sound. I don’t know if Sweetie Belle heard it, but the rest of us sure did. As we were waiting for Sweetie or her parents to come to the door and let us all know what was up, I heard Pinkie Pie give one of her big gasps – you know the ones – and bounce over to me. “Gosh, Scootaloo!” she said. “I guess you really are a good knocker!”
Pinkie… well, we were never the best of pals, I guess. So I sounded a bit annoyed when I asked her what she meant.
“Look!” she said majestically, pointing at my flank. I looked, and there, right there, at last, I had a cutie mark. A cutie mark of my hoof hitting Sweetie Belle’s parents’ door.
You can fill in the details of the next few days yourself. A lot of excitement, from me and from my friends. A huge Pinkie Pie Party with practically all the town invited. And then, gradually, the jokes began. Slowly at first, as if poking fun at me had only just occurred to them, but in a month or so I was being tormented practically non-stop, and there are only so many original jokes about knocking you can hear before everypony just starts telling knockoffs of one another’s. I lost my temper with Apple Bloom after she suggested I get together some of the ponies that had been making fun of me and ‘knock their heads together.’ Or ‘knock some sense into them,’ I forget which. Not cool, either way.
I barely even remember by now what Sweetie Belle had called us all over for in the first place… a treasure hunt where she was the prize or some lame girly stuff like that. I mean, what was she, three and a half? I had bigger stuff to worry about, like Rainbow Dash, the superfast stunt pegasus I used to idolize. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of her out here, ma’am, but back in Ponyville, she’d been talking about giving me flight lessons sometime. I guess she was thinking I was going to follow in her hoofsteps and become a great flyer like her, but that all dried up the moment I got my knocking cutie mark. She didn’t even bother to come to Pinkie’s party for me, and she wasn’t too happy when I tracked her down a few weeks later.
“Come on, Rainbow Dash, give me a chance!” I told her. “I can still be a great flyer, I know I can!”
“Sorry, squirt,” she said. “I don’t think your special talent is related to flying. You’re not gonna knock anypony dead with a cutie mark like that one.”
I was so upset at the possibility of losing Rainbow Dash that I was barely even annoyed at that jibe. “It’s just a cutie mark!” I said. “I can still do other stuff! I’ve got loads of promise, really I do!”
“Yeah, promise with doors, maybe. Don’t go knocking at my door anymore, Scoots.”
“But…” I said, mostly to myself, as she flew away. “But… that’s all I know how to do.”
Things basically went downhill from there. Eventually the teasing got too bad and I told Cheerilee, my teacher, that I was leaving her class to seek my destiny elsewhere, the “school of hard knocks” as she couldn’t resist putting it. I shot her a hard glare and left. Sweetie Belle followed soon after: I was telling her about all my problems one day, and she said that at least I wasn’t a colt, so I didn’t have to worry about knocking anypony up. She looked terribly pleased with herself; I never set hoof in Ponyville again.
From there my life was pretty much the pits. Wandering around Equestria, always hungry, looking for the least bit of paid work to keep myself alive. From time to time I'd score a job, but it would never last; my skill set’s just way too narrow. For every actress who wants somepony to knock on their door to let them know they’re on in five minutes, there’s somepony out there who can do that and a half-dozen other tasks as well. I was about ready to lie down and start knocking on heaven’s door, until right after that interview with Proper Placement, when they found me. Two well-dressed ponies, a mare and a stallion, who’d heard about me and wanted me to join their organization. All I’d have to do was go around and knock on doors, they said. Knock on doors, and if there was somepony home, talk about the organization and how wonderful it was and how they should join. Like I’m doing right now with you, ma’am.
You see, ma’am, if the Celestia's Witnesses can take a poor, unemployable pony like me and turn her life around, I’m sure they can do the same for you. I know some of our beliefs are a little out of the ordinary, but if you really think about it, you’ll start to see they really do make sense. Really, ma’am, don’t knock it; I sure didn’t.
Opportunity only knocks once, after all.
