The Terrible, No Good Joke
The slowest time for business was usually the hour before the lunch rush. At least, that was the case for Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie was happy to serve anypony around that time, since she could give them her undivided attention. Even when it was empty, she had time to prepare for the rush of customers that would arrive when the lunch crowd did show up. .
For today, she was happy to have the place to herself before the rush. She used the time to get her mind together, which she needed badly after what happened with the Friendship Journal’s publication. All the ponies laughing at her every word, feeling sad when Rarity’s business was down, and all the other things that happened. Wiping the store counter was the perfect antidote to get away from the madness, as she learned the hard way that this wasn’t going to be a quick fix.
She checked the ovens to make sure they were clean, washed any dishes from the morning traffic, and other chores like that. Part of her dreaded the moment when the doorbell rang again; she didn’t know if it was going to be a customer or one of THOSE ponies again. When it rang this time, she was treated to a welcome sight.
“Rarity! Fluttershy! Come on in, I got all the cupcakes and donuts you can fit into your mouth!” she cheered.
“Don’t be so rude, I would only need a croissant or two,” Rarity replied, wearing a simple sun hat and blue glasses to match. “Still, it is good to see you again. It may have only been a week since we’ve had to deal with that dreadful mob, but it’s felt like a lifetime.”
“At least it’s died down a little,” Fluttershy sighed. “Nopony’s complaining about my life choices anymore, so that’s good. It helps that I know someone that can send ponies to other dimensions if things get too rough.”
“I didn’t have to go to such extreme measures. Business is back up for the Boutique, thank Celestia. Maybe they rediscovered my exquisite tastes in fashion?”
Pinkie’s ears parted to the side. “You two are so lucky. I can’t even walk ten feet without somepony laughing at me. It’s like I’m the funniest pony ever to them. Just last week, somepony laughed when I sneezed. It’s weird!”
“Oh, Pinkie, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Rarity frowned, and she comforted the pink pony with a pat on the shoulder. “I’m sure it will go away for you as it did for us. It’s just a silly trend, after all.”
“She’s right,” Fluttershy agreed. “You just have to smile and get through it by--”
A stampede suddenly echoed through the walls. Many hooves stomped the ground outside the Corner, and Pinkie knew what it meant. She hid under the counter for cover.
“What is that?” gasped Fluttershy.
“IT’S THEM!” Pinkie shouted.
The Corner flooded with tons of ponies wearing pink shirts and pink hats in no time. There were dozens if not hundreds of them in there, and they were all looking for one specific pony. No points for guessing who.
“Where’s Pinkie Pie?” “Isn’t the yellow pony the kinda-shy-but-not-really one?” “Hey, I bought a dress from that pony last week. You think she knows where Pinkie is?” “Come on, I only have a few minutes before the afternoon shift, I need my Pinkie jokes now!” “I heard she turned into a white pegasus to hide from us, but that’s just silly!”
Pinkie sighed. It was inevitable she had to deal with them, so she decided to get this over with and poked her head out of the counter. “Hey...guys…”
All the fans gasped and crowded the space by the counter. “I was worried you ran away or something!” “You have any funny jokes today? I’m sure they’re all great.” “Yeah, you got a joke?”
Oh no. This was almost as bad as the time she cloned herself. Rarity and Fluttershy watched in horror from the sight, wanting to help their friend but not sure how they could.
“No, I don’t have any jokes today. They just kinda happen. I just do whatever comes up in my head and that’s it.” She took out a purple cupcake and took a bite to tide her over before lunch. That made everypony there erupt in laughter.
“What? Why are you all laughing? I just ate a cupcake!”
“But you ate a purple cupcake!” a fan replied. “It looks just like Twilight’s coat color, so it’s like you’re eating her! It’s so funny!” He snorted even louder at the thought.
Pinkie gasped in horror. “I would never eat a friend like that! That would be terrible, so very terrible, and I just can’t do that!” In the meantime, she put away a rainbow-colored cupcake into the box for another order.
“Do something else! Do something else!” the crowd chanted.
“We can’t just leave her like this,” Rarity whispered to Fluttershy. “What should we do?”
“Just wait until it’s over?” Fluttershy thought. “That’s how I get through Nightmare Night.”
Pinkie rolled her eyes and mopped the kitchen floor, getting it ready for when a real customer came into her store. Another burst of laughing erupted from the crowd. “Hey, she’s using a mop and not her tail! Her tail has magical absorbing powers, so it’s silly she’s using it!”
Maybe just turning on a sink would get them to shut up? She tried that and got more giggles for her troubles. “She can turn things with her hooves! That’s impossible, she doesn’t have fingers like a griffon or dragon! Oh Pinkie, you’re so funny!”
“Are you going to order something or laugh at every little thing I do?” she snapped in a rare show of anger.
“Both, but mostly laugh!” a fan giggled.
Her ears parted to the side once reality sat in. Needless to say, it would be a long day.
“Who laughs when a pony turns on a sink? Who?” Pinkie grumbled as she organized the books in her hooves.
“I don’t know what to say,” Twilight sighed. “Rarity told me the whole story, and I’m sorry you’re still having those problems. I’m sorry I ever thought that publishing the Journal was a good idea.”
“It’s not your fault. You’re not the one hooting and hollering about purple cupcakes and piles of dust. Wow, my inner Apple is coming out.” She handed Twilight a copy of Starswirl’s memoirs, and the book was sent to the shelves in a magical grip soon after.
“Sometimes, it feels like I’m the one who did it.” Twilight looked over the copy just to make sure it was there in the right way. “It was my idea, and, well, you get the idea.”
“Good thing I never wrote a word in the Journal,” Spike snarked as he dusted the shelves below. “You’re still dealing with that mess, while I get to meet Thorax and Ember later this month. Having no fans in Ponyville isn’t as bad I thought.”
Twilight shot him a glare, and he shut up about it. “Why are they still bothering you, anyway?” she inquired.
“I don’t know. They keep calling me the Funny One in the group, and it’s just frustrating!”
“To be fair, Pinkie, you are the Element of Laughter. Comedy is one of your gifts. I don’t know what it would take for you to not be funny.”
Not be funny...not be funny…
“IDEA!” Pinkie shouted. “I know just how to fix this! I just have to ask Fluttershy how to get somewhere weird and creepy!”
She tossed the whole pile of books in the air and ran out of there. Spike and Twilight panicked and sprinted to get all the books before they fell to the floor--and then they all fell down to the floor in a neat, one stacked pile.
“Huh. Maybe she should help out more?” Spike thought.
“So that’s all that’s been going on. Crazy, I know,” Pinkie finished. “Hey, can you pass the sandwiches? It’s hard to get them when they’re floating in the air.”
“You can just float over there yourself, you know,” Discord pointed out. He snapped his fingers and forced the sandwiches to come to Pinkie, who was also floating in the air.
“Thanks. The thing is, I wasn’t sure what to do. Then I thought the solution was just to not be funny. And who else is better at that kind of advice than the draconequus that said all those lame jokes at the Gala last year?”
Discord’s eyebrows ignited into flames, but he put them out with an ice bucket before she saw it. “I was just off my game that night. My jokes are way funnier most of the time But you’re asking me how to tell a bad joke?”
“Yeah! After all, ponies don’t tease you about that night anymore. I hoped you could help me out.”
“Well, it did help that I can send ponies to another dimension at will, push them off a cliff I made out of thin air, or turn them into a hairless ape. That last one terrifies them the most save for Lyra,” he noted as he looked over a list of reasons why he was awesome. “But you want to know how to get rid of all your fans without trying? You’ve come to the right place, as I do it all the time.”
Pinkie leaned in to listen, even if it pushed it towards the walls. “What do I do?”
“Just simply force them all into a place where they’ll have no choice but to listen to you, and be as painfully awkward as you can get. Like forcing them to watch you take a bath?”
The mere mental picture of that made her cringe. “No no no, I’m not doing that. What about, um, a comedy club?”
Discord’s eyes literally reran the events of the Gala like a movie projector, as he was the one cringing hard now. “Eh, I suppose. At least you’re trying to alienate your friends, unlike me. It just comes natural. Then again, everypony would expect you to bring your A game, and they would be crushed that you’re making such a hideous butchery of such a fine theater of art.”
“That works! But how am I going to tell bad jokes? I’m way too funny. At least, that’s what they say.”
“Well, it’s simple.” He cracked his fingers, and a big book landed right on top of Pinkie’s head. It slammed her down to the floor and almost hurt her poor little body. “Just take a look at this book.”
Pinkie rubbed her head and looked at the cover of the text. “A Million Bazillion Dad Jokes, By Shining Armor? But I didn’t think he wrote books.”
“He doesn’t. I just happen to eavesdrop on him for fun, and let me tell you, he’s in Dad Mode, because nopony would make jokes like this unless the burdens of dadhood crushed their souls.”
“Huh. That might just work. Thanks, Discord! I’ll be sure to use the worst of them!” She put the book in her mane, despite the book being three times as large as her whole body, and stepped out the door. “Come on, Ginsing Tea! It’s about time we headed home!”
She stuck out her hoof and whistled them over. A lot of Ginsing Tea bags, singing the catchiest tune ever, surrounded her whole frame. They pulled away soon after, with a bunch of leashes tied around their waists, and lifted her away to home.
Discord had to wipe away a tear out of pride. “She may not be a draconequus, but she’s certainly as random as one.”
The comedy club was just on the outskirts of Ponyville, as simple as the rest of the town’s buildings. Pinkie sent out fliers all over Equestria and even a few neighboring countries, inviting her fans and only her fans to a comedy show they would never forget. Oh, would they remember this one.
Judging from the huge line of customers leading up to the building, word traveled fast. There were a ton of ponies in line from the young to the old, and even a few griffons showed up for the event. A certain red figure was in line, but nobody could recognize him from the fedora and trenchcoat he wore. It was weird he was standing on two feet, though.
Pinkie looked out the window to see the horde of people waiting to watch her act. Even for her, it was a large crowd, but she knew this had to be done. Better to do it this way than to hope the fad dies out, when it clearly wasn’t.
A few minutes later, the doors opened up and the crowd filled the whole place to the brim, occupying every table and booth on the floor. They watched the stage carefully and couldn’t wait until the comedian of the night came out.
Behind the stage curtain, Pinkie took one last breath. “Okay, Pinkie. You got this. I know it’s not you to try to make other ponies feel unwelcome, but you got this. Just channel your inner dad. Sheesh, that sounded weird. Maybe channel my inner mom?”
A spotlight lit up the stage a few minutes later, and she walked onto the stage to a thunderous applause. It took her off guard to find a few griffons there, and she didn’t know why that shadowy red guy was sitting in the shadows, but whatever. It was showtime.
“Well...um...hello!” she said on the mic. “I’m Pinkie Pie, and boy, what a...show I got for you all tonight.” The roar she got was so loud, her ears were almost ringing.
“So, um…” She pulled out a cue card from the thousands of Dad Jokes she had in her mane. “What do you get when you lick a piece of salty popcorn? A salt lick!”
The crowd couldn’t contain themselves. “Oh my gosh, that’s what it is!” “Only Pinkie could make something so funny!” “Stupid pony, with funny jokes,” said a rather deep voice coming from the shadowy figure.
Her eyes twitched. This was supposed to work. Nopony likes Dad Jokes. Especially from somepony as adorkable as Shining Armor.
She took a deep breath and concentrated on the next sure-to-be stinker. “You’ve ever met a grumpy dragon? I know just the thing to do. Just give them Rarity’s address, she’s got enough gems to make them happy.”
Rinse and repeat, the crowd laughed and stampeded in applause. Except for one little twist.
The trenchcoat wearing figure was laughing harder than everyone else in there. So much that his breath did a little funny thing: It shout out a burst of fire. The fire went straight down and hit his trenchcoat, and then jumped over to his fedora. The whole suit went up in flames, burning into a pile of dust. As it turned out, the figure was none other than Garble.
“Uh, err, you didn’t see anything!” He jumped out the window and ran for his life.
“What? What?” Pinkie said in wonder. Yes, what Garble did was weird, but that joke specifically had a “guaranteed to get a groan out of somepony” note by Discord. This had to work! With that one failing hard, she hit her panic mode and thought up any joke that might sound awful.
“Hey, Zecora rhymes a lot!”
The crowd was literally rolling with laughter.
“Princess Luna probably went into a dream she regretted seeing!”
Rinse and repeat.
“One time, I gave a bucket a name!”
The got the audience howling like never before. .
Things really hit the fan for her now. It felt like she was living a nightmare. Sweat poured down her face when she REALLY hit panic mode now, and it was time to get away.
“You know what, I’m going to take a short break. I’ll be right back!” She fled for the backstage as soon as she could.
Convinced nopony could see her now, she collapsed on the floor and took a giant drink of water. “Oh, it’s no use. I’m just too funny. Even when I tell Dad Jokes, I can’t get away from it.”
“It’s that bad, isn’t it?” a familiar voice asked.
She lifted her head and found Twilight backstage with her. “Twilight? What are you doing here?”
“When I found out you were having a comedy club show, I wanted to see how it went. Discord told me you were trying to get everypony off your back, but I heard what happened out there. I’m so sorry.”
Pinkie’s mane deflated into a flat mess. “I know, right? Being bad at comedy is hard. I wonder how your brother does it.”
Twilight ignored that insult for the time being, but she wouldn’t let it slide. “I thought about it after you left, and there’s something I never considered when it comes to fans.”
The pink pony got up on her hooves. “What’s that?”
“Some of them are really, really annoying, we know that. But they can be a good thing as well, you know?”
Pinkie tilted her head. “I don’t know. Can you tell me?”
“Well, remember when Celestia had to banish Luna to the moon? She told me about the time when she was broken inside over it, and it took her years, centuries really, to get over it.”
“That makes sense, but what does that have to do with me?”
“There was something that really helped her out during the first few months of Luna’s banishment. It didn’t fix everything, but several of Celestia’s subjects came to her and gave her some encouragement, like telling her that she did a good job ruling Equestria, how she was a good role model for fillies and colts, things like that. Having support like that comes a long way.”
The pink mane was starting to inflate again. “I see what you mean now. It’s just that I don’t want everypony pestering me no matter what I do. It happens all the time.”
“I know. It’s a hard thing to live with. But I don’t think everypony in there has been pestering you, right?”
“I guess not. To be honest, a lot of those ponies are people I’ve never seen before. There was this weird dragon, but I didn’t think too much about it.”
Suddenly, Twilight was upset that she didn’t kidnap the dragon and got to interrogate him for her new dragon studies book. “I’m not saying you should be happy about that, but keep in mind that a few of them probably like you for who you are, and that’s it. They don’t want to pester you, and they probably came here because you help lift them up.”
“Are you sure? I told a billion Dad Jokes and they found them all funny, just like yesterday in the corner. That’s not good…”
“Just finish your comedy act and see how it goes. I promise that some of them won’t be that annoying.”
Pinkie nodded. “Okay. I’ll try. But I hope it doesn’t get even worse.”
“I really doubt it can, to be honest.”
A few minutes, the Earth Pony went back out on the stage. She watched all the audience watch her intently, as she thought about all the reasons why they would be there other than to annoy her. Maybe Twilight was right, or maybe she was wrong. The thought of going through this any longer scared her, but going with the flow was a different approach, at least.
“Well, the break’s over, and boy, do I have a great story for you all.”
The crowd cheered in approval. “We’re listening!”
“So one night, I had a dream with the Mirror Pool in it. Luna came in to check on my dreams, but she tripped and fell in the pool by accident. Suddenly, there were two Lunas in my dream, and then four, you get the picture. But those Mirror Pool Lunas could go into other dreams, too. I heard they all said ‘MOON! MOON!’ to everypony they met.
“So the next night, Luna goes into Octavia’s dream and finds her blowing up the moon with dynamite. She wonders why anypony would do that, and then Octavia said ‘YOU WOULDN’T SHUT UP ABOUT IT LAST NIGHT!’”
The roof nearly came off the place from all the laughing from the audience. The rest of the night was like that, and there might have been a new crack or two in the roof from all the noise.
Thankfully, the next day was Pinkie’s day off. It was about time she had some rest after all that nonsense. Before she did anything else, though, she thought it was a good idea to check the mail.
The mailbox was full to the brim with letters to her dismay. She wondered if Derpy made another mistake again, but no, they were all addressed to her. Oh no, I just made things worse, didn’t I? Was Twilight wrong? She’s never wrong about friendship problems. That’s why she’s the Princess of Friendship now!
She dragged all the letters to her room and spilled them over her bed. It would eat up a lot of her day to read them all, but she figured it was best to do this now. The first letters she opened were just as awful as she predicted. They were harassing her about how great she was at this stuff, not in the “you made a good joke” way, but the “you drink water funny” way. It was like her problem took the form of the written word. That was awful and terrifying at the same time, and she swore never to do a comedy club gig again.
But then something interesting happened with the next letter.
”Miss Pie, what a night we had last night. That salt lick joke was amazing, but it’s not as funny when I say it. It’s always nice to have a gifted comedian stop by the club, and you’re one of the best I’ve seen.
“Huh. That wasn’t so bad. I wonder what else I got?”
”To Pinkie, that was a great show. I’m thinking about going into comedy myself, and you’re the one that inspired me to take it up. I’ve been taking notes on how you do it, so I might be half as good as you one day.
“Wow. That was deep.” She opened up another letter. This one turned out to be something very special.
”Dear Pinkie Pie, thanks for the comedy club show. I had been through a really terrible month, since I had to see my daughter go into the hospital’s ICU with a life threatening injury, and she barely survived. She’s fine at home if you’re asking. Your show helped her laugh for the first time since the accident, and it helped me laugh again, too. It helped me remember that life goes on, and there’s still a lot to look forward to. Thank you so much for that.
Tears streamed down her face as she went through the story. She had saved Equestria several times and ponies thanked her for it before, but this story was so personal for her. It was the kind of letter that could change somepony’s life, and it was certainly going to change her life after today.
Several letters like this littered her mailbox, and she even hung some of them up on a billboard so she could remember them after the fact. It turned out that she learned something today.
And then she opened the last letter. It was quite the shock.
”Pinkie, Shining Armor is totally funny! That salt lick joke is a classic. Do you know how many times Flurry Heart and Cadence laughed at his stuff? It totally has nothing to do with the fact that he’s family! Signed, Twilight Sparkle
P.S. I’m not mad at you, it’s just that I love my BBFFF and he’s so funny. Well, you’re funny too but-- The rest of the letter were just crossed out ramblings and regrets.
Author's Note
Just something fun and silly I wanted to do for reasons. Sure helps that the latest episode quite the interesting reception.
