Diary of a Theme Park Pony AKA How Twilight Dice became Zombie Dice
I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy as I am right now. Finally I’ve gotten back to the company that I’ve been itching to get back to for over a year now. Somehow I knew when I made my way to the firework show, stood for an hour in the rain, waited through all of the ponies crowding around me and finally got to see the amazing show of magic against the castle that this is where I belong. I needed to make other ponies feel exactly how I felt when every detail of that show washed over me and made me so emotional that for once, I actually cried. All it took was a song and some paper lanterns, and I was done.
Now here I am, standing here with a date in hand to come back and go through the first day of training. I already know what’s coming. We’ll get some cheesy spiels, the somepony will bring us out into the park as though it’s our first time, we’ll get to explore, and then the beloved mascot will bring in our brand new nametags. It’s not like I haven’t done it before, but that doesn’t make it any less special. It doesn’t make it any less meaningful.
Plus, I get to do one of the best jobs out there! The park has this neat card game that’s run entirely on magic portals that some of the Unicorn workers spend their work hours on. There’s acting, fake battles, and the satisfaction of knowing that you did something to “save” the kingdom. I might not be a Unicorn, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help! I get to be the one explaining how ponies play the game and handing out free packs of cards. I don’t have to deal with bits, which is a pretty big perk. I also don’t see any way that this could be bad. How can you make ponies upset by giving them free things and showing them how to do something that will just bring them happiness?
I could also learn how to drive the train later! I feel so lucky for once in my life. Things are finally starting to look up.
*---------------------------------------------------------------------*
I’ve never seen a storm this bad. My orientation is in two days, and the entire home is shaking around us whenever the wind blows. The area of Equestria that I come from has Earthquakes, sure, but those feel like nothing compared to a hurricane. The last few haven’t been this bad. Then again, we always spent them in more stable buildings like an actual house or an inn. I feel bad being a crying mess in front of my roommate, but I just can’t sit in my room by myself, completely in the dark. I’ve bought my candles out into the living room and we’re sitting together on the couch just waiting for the night to pass. I can’t even sleep.
*---------------------------------------------------------------------*
There’s no damage to the house, even if the swamp behind us flooded all the way to the stairs. Luckily I can fly over the water, but my poor housemate has to wrap bags around his legs and trudge through to the road. There’s no power, and the house is so hot it’s unbearable. Our poor pet will have to stay in the house and we’ll check on him daily, but we’ve decided to stay at an inn for a couple of days because of the heat. We’ll be leaving him bottles of ice to snuggle up to and make lots of stops at home just to make sure his area is clean, he’s got fresh water and lots of food. But the Inns around here won't let us take him with us even though there was an emergency situation. As it was, it was hard to find one at all.
I had to be the one to get anything else we needed because apparently the water also brought some poisonous snakes into the area and some gators. So it wasn’t safe for my roommate to go back and forth in the water anymore. I just hope our luck turns around before my orientation.
*---------------------------------------------------------------------*
Things went pretty much the way I thought they would for most of the day. We came in, got a silly presentation, got to walk around the park and even got to ride one of my favorite rides. Oh, I’d kill to work that ride! It’s an omnimover, AKA a ride that never stops moving. Ponies get onto a moving walkway that goes at the same speed as the ride cars in order to get onto the ride itself. Those kinds of rides are so easy to run. On top of that, the ride is spooky! I love spooky things.
The shift in things being predictable happened when I was taken off to the side with a few others when it came to meeting someone from our area that would give us our training schedules. I was told when I was interviewed that I would be running the fun park-wide game. It turns out, either they outright lied to me, or they were wrong. I wasn’t going to get to run that game. Instead, they were making me crowd control for the parades and the very fireworks that inspired me to try and apply. One might think that was a good thing. On the contrary, it meant that I was most likely going to get yelled at quite a lot and I was going to have to suddenly make myself quite a bit more assertive. It was a blow to my already down spirits, but I told myself it was nothing I couldn’t handle.
If other ponies could do it, then so could I! Besides, if I didn’t like it, I could transfer to a different area after 6 months. All I had to do was put up with the job if I didn’t like it until then and then I could go to a different area, learn new skills, and maybe get yelled at a little less. With that in mind, I was ready to step forward into the world of intense customer service.
And with that, my adventure began.
Author's Note
*These are real stories from my own life as a theme-park worker. Hence, the self-insert status. I've just pony-fied things and left out names of rides/parks in particular.
