Upper Crust

“Buh?”

Cookie felt the press of a hoof into her side. More specifically, Pinny’s. The mare opened her bleary eyes and looked at the clock. 2:37AM.

“Oh no...did I sleep through the alarm again? S-Sorry honey, but I...yawn...feel like I could use another few hours at least.” Cookie replied whilst still yawning, but she hauled herself out of bed just the same.

Since the amazing review a few weeks ago both of them had been getting up extra early. She knew the life of a baker was difficult, she was more than used to early starts. However by the time they had closed up for the day and gotten home, the pair were only getting two or maybe three hours sleep. The daily demand was exhausting.

It was all because of the increase in sales. On one hoof, the review had been such a blessing. Cookie had done some rough mental maths and figured that with the amount of money now coming in, if the rate of sales kept up they’d pay off their entire loan and own the business outright within a year.

One the other, it was a curse. Customers coming to the store each day had more than tripled and the two hardly got a moment to just stop and rest before another pony either trotted, waddled or squeezed their way through the door. In some cases like Clipsy, one of them had actually had started taking their orders outside for them as they could no longer fit inside the store and no amount of butter or grease would allow them to slide in. Some of their customers were just becoming too fat, with Clipsy leading the way in obesity.

This also meant the extra early starts to ensure that there were enough baked goodies for everypony each day to satisfy demand. It seemed the bigger that their regular customers got the more they wanted to order. Clipsy for example was now taking three of her usual goodie bags each day which meant she was packing on the pounds thrice as quickly. Others once they were getting to certain sizes began to ask for an extra chocolate cookie here, or a few extra pieces of carrot cake there. As of yet, neither had refused any orders. Cookie felt bad but getting up so early she wanted to make all the extra effort worth it and that meant taking a few extra bits from the big ones when they added to their order.

In any case, another day was before them. Despite being still half asleep, with a cookie mug in hoof her and Pinny were sitting at their small living room table just taking ten minutes before the day began.

“We need to do something about the obese customers.” Cookie started to say. When she was this tired, she was very to the point about things.

“Hmm, I suppose. Anything in mind?” Pinny asked. “We’re busy enough without having to run their orders out to them.”

“What about a window?” Cookie asked.

Pinny sat for a moment. “I’m sorry dear, I don’t quite follow.”

“Okay, so you know how those big fast food places that sell burgers, fries etc have like - cart windows? Customers with carts can just pull into a little separate lane and then order at a window? What about that.” she explained.

“Well...we’re on a corner but we’re right on the pavement. We don’t have room to build a whole cart lane. Also dear, most of those big customers waddle. Or at least they try to...I think Clipsy might actually be cheating and using wheels under her hooves. I swear I can’t even see them move…” Pinny mused to himself.

“That’s only because she’s so large now that most of her folds cover her legs. Anyway, well what about just a window?” Cookie asked again.

“Err…”

“Okay, let me sketch it…” Cookie said, pulling a piece of scrap paper from nearby and a pencil and starting to doodle a very rough outline of the interior of the bakery, explaining as she did so. “So the counter runs from this wall, in a ninety degree bend and then to this wall yes?” she said, with Pinny just nodding his head to agree. “Well what if where it ends at this wall that is next to the street, we cut a hole in it and add a window. That way, ponies too big to fit inside could just queue there and we don’t have to keep coming out to them.” Cookie said, making her point by drawing a huge arrow on the paper where she was talking about having the work done.

“Hmm...it’s a good idea. But there’s one thing, we’re super busy. I know there’s two of us but that’s another thing we’d have to look after. I can see us getting so caught up in serving customers at the actual counter we forget about those at the window.” Pinny replied.

“Well...what if we hired some help. You know, maybe a young pony? It wouldn’t be a hard job. All he or she would have to do is stand at the window taking orders, fetching the items we prepare and then giving it to the customer and taking the money. I mean we’re making so much money now Pinny with all these extra sales that we could afford to take someone on.” she said.

“You know sometimes you really do have all the answers.” Pinny said, giving her a small peck on her cheek. “Maybe you should be tired more often. You seem to come up with the best things.” he chuckled, to the unamused frown of Cookie.

“Yes...well do you think if I cover the bakery for an hour when it’s quietest you could contact the builder ponies who helped us with the interior of the bakery before we opened? They did say they’d be happy to work for us again. I think I’d just need to bake them up some more cookies.” Cookie said with a smile.

“I don’t see why not. Anyway I think we’ve discussed this enough. Times wasting and if today is like every other day of the past few weeks we need to get cracking, those treats won’t bake themselves, as much as I’d like them to.” Pinny said, getting up having finished his coffee. Cookie did the same, the two leaving the empty mugs on the counter and heading out into the dark and cool night air. At this time of day the city was sleeping, hardly another soul about. That would change quickly of course.

As the two trotted towards another day of work Cookie just thought more about the problem. She was sure ponies like Clipsy were getting so wide they took up a large portion of the sidewalk. Would she be spilling out into the street in another few weeks? None of the especially large ones seemed to really be noticing that they were just getting so obese. All they did was keep coming back for more, each and every day. Like the sugar, Cookie was sure the window idea was just a temporary stop gap until they had to face the real issue but for the meantime, it would allow them to keep selling without the issue of ponies being too large to come in. She remembered the last time Clipsy had actually managed to get in, she had been wedged for a solid hour in the doorway until a combination of grease, butter and about six ponies pushing and pulling her had actually freed her. It was at that point Cookie had decided to bring orders out and stuck a note in the door informing customers if they were too wide, to wait outside and she or Pinny would see to them.

It was actually quite incredible to her just how large some of them were getting, she didn’t think ponies were capable of such weight. Some were starting to resemble hippos more than ponies as each sale added more and more pounds to their already hugely wobbly bodies. Only time would tell. For now, once Pinny had talked to the builders they’d have to find some time to interview a few candidates for the job. Hopefully the work would be completed quickly.