Anon the Dishwasher

You wake up. You usually get up around the same time, your guess is that the current time is plus or minus 30 minutes from noon. You wonder why it's so easy to get up in this world. Might be something in the water.

You do your routine of freshening up the best you can, and reflect a little.

It's day three of working as a dishwasher in pony land. You're definitely getting into the groove now.

According to your schedule, you are to work 5 days a week, 4 hours a day. Back on home world, this would never have seemed to be a large amount by any means, but in this land, it's a full-time commitment. Palette says you're making a living wage, supposedly. You'll be the judge of that. You were surprised to learn that all employees at Dinny's got paid on a weekly basis, and that the pay was not staggered. This means that you're getting the exact amount of money you made for a given week.

You've never experienced this before. This feels good to you. The best part is, you get TWO days off! That's right, you, Anon, get TWO days off of toiling away in the pits! You mean, sure, it's only because of the business closing down on the slowest days. You could have had more time off, but after hearing about the turnover and the fact that they had no dishwashers on hand, you opted to work there every day that they're open.

You get up, head out, and dawdle about in town.

You could have sworn that nobody gave you any strange looks in town. You guess that word got out and now the local townsfolk have some respect for you now that some of them know you have a job. You're definitely sure Palette said something good about you to someone and that caused a collective lightening of the local's mood of you.

You're just glad you'll be able to exchange currency for goods and services come Tuesday. As of right now, however, it's Sunday, and it's another 4 hours in the dish pit. 4 hours a day means almost nothing to you. You were used to working clopens, 12 hour shifts, all without an "attaboy" at the end to keep your spirits up. You're not sure if this is heaven, but it sure does feel like it. You also take solace in the knowledge of a guaranteed paycheck. Ponies aren't one to lie often, and when they do, they're poor at it.

You think your coworkers are a little bit afraid of you, however. Who wouldn't be? In comes this strange creature that's capable of doing menial dishwork without even breaking a sweat, or breaking down into tears at the end of every shift. To them, you're either a superhuman... pony, or someone who has lost their marbles long ago.

Sundays have always been easy days, even on Earth. Traffic just isn't that busy during dinner time, and the only time that the restaurant struggles on Sundays is the brunch crowd. You're not even sure there's any churches in town, you haven't seen any. Why do these ponies worship their sun and moon gods without places of worship? It makes no sense!

Your thoughts are interrupted as you head in to begin your easy shift. When you walk in, you're greeted by a dish pit that isn't all that full. Looks like you're in for a day of mostly idling in front of the dish pit with nobody to bother you. 2 hours in, sadly, you're bothered by a certain yellow serverhorse.

"Hey Anon, how come you're able to stick your..." yellow serverhorse begins.

"Hand?" you say.

"Yeah! Right! Hand... in the soapy water? It's too hot!" she says.

You look at the soak sink. It never really was all THAT hot. It was maybe hot enough to feel sort of sting-y the second you put your hand in. They struggle with this?

Yellow serverhorse continues talking.

"Whenever it's just been filled, I'm so scared to even put my plates in because sometimes it makes a splash, and then I get that super hot water on me!"

You raise your hand in response. Yellow serverhorse looks at you with anticipation.

"It's simple, really." you say. The soak sink is freshly filled up, so that means it's currently at its hottest. "I just take my hand, and..."

You aim your hand at the sink and place it in without making so much as a single splash. Some would call it the perfect dive. Yellow serverhorse flinches for a second, then looks at your hand that's slightly submerged in the water. She's currently breathing heavily. You hear a couple of drops of water hit the floor, but you ignore it. Yellow serverhorse is blushing, but you didn't notice.

"Y-you don't even have any fur! H-how?" yellow serverhorse stammers out.

"I dunno, man. I'm built different." you reply.

The day continues.

Now the day is ending soon! Yellow serverhorse brought some of the staff with her to stick around and watch you do your magic. The staff includes most of the front of house, with some of the cooks mixed in. You hear them talking right behind you.

"I haven't seen anypony work that fast!"

"How is he able to do that?"

"Be a good pony... be a good pony..."

Yellow serverhorse speaks up from the crowd of technicolor ponies behind you.

"Hey Anon, show everypony here what you showed me earlier!"

You lazily put your hand in the hot, soapy water. This earns you a few surprised gasps, and even a couple of cheers.

"Wow! He sure is tough to be able to do that!"

"I'd hate to mess with him!"

"How'd he do that?"

Yellow serverhorse turns around to the talking group of server ponies.

"See? He just tells me he's built different, or something like that! It's amazing!" yellow serverhorse tells them. This amount of praise sure does fill your soaking body with vigor! Then, another one of the ponies speak up to you.

"So, Anon, when are you going to quit?" one says. You stop what you're doing suddenly, and this causes the crowd of ponies to go silent. You turn around. The sound of empty restaurant fills the room.

"What do you mean, quit?" you ask.

"W-well, we haven't had a dishwasher go at it like you have, so you must be feeling pretty burnt out, right?" one of the cooks ask. Oh, right. They haven't had a dedicated dishwasher before.

"What do you mean? I haven't even gotten started." you say. You hear a couple of gasps from the crowd of fellow coworkers. Exasperated ponies bring you much joy.

"You're not going to be leaving us?" another one asks.

"Not until someone starts paying me more to go wash their dishes, no." you say. You get a couple of cheers from that.

"Yay! We have a dishwasher that's good at his job!" another says.

This is laughably easy.

You finish up for the day, say your goodbyes, and head back to your troll bridge headquarters. You gather some sticks and start up another campfire. Fire is nice to have in this pony land.

As you're looking at the open flame, you enjoy the lack of unpleasant nights. It's quiet and serene. It's just you, your tent, the fire, and the stream of water under the bridge. Nice!

You head off to sleep soon after.

A night of sleep happens, of which you slept rather well.

It's Monday!

You wake up, an easy task set forth in this magical pony land. The grass is growing, the birds are singing, and the sun is shining. The first thought that comes to your mind is what would happen if you kicked a pony. Would they explode into confetti, or would they be immediately bloody and bruised? You don't think about how concerning this thought is to you.

The other thing on your mind is the fact that your pubic hairs are growing, and that's kind of nasty. At least it helps with chafing. You're still on a passive hunt for a razor. You're sure the beard on your face is kind of disgraceful to someone out there.

You get up, dress up, and splash some water on your face from the stream.

Your clothes will soon get old enough to the point of complete failure, so you make a mental note to make an attempt to get some new ones tailored for you somewhere when you have the cash. Do ponies even wear clothes? You sure do like having your trusty pair of jeans, and you're not sure what you're going to do when the crotch area eventually splits.

You check your hands. Yup, they're still there, and yup, there's some skin peeling off your fingertips. Maybe pony land has a magical cream for this sort of stuff. You're just glad that your hands haven't completely melted away from the constant submersion yet, but you do know it will become a problem in the future.

There's no morning dishwasher at Dinny's, so you're stuck with the entirety of the day's dishes whenever you enter. It's not like it's a big deal or anything, they're simple, small, and easy to clean. Huh, you realize that have a monopoly on their dishes.

Alright, enough sitting on your ass. Time for a jaunt!

The shitty morning part of the story is now over, and now you're currently walking at a leisurely pace through town. You are quite entertained just by the normal sights themselves. You never really got to do this back on Earth, since whenever you were outside you were in a car. Too much attention on the road and too little on everything else. You miss your Corolla.

Speaking of roads and traffic, there's now a pony directly on your ass.

"Move faster, please! You're interrupting my trotty time!" the pony cries out. The path is clearly wide enough for two living beings to walk side-by-side.

You keep your pace. Without looking behind you, you speak up.

"Can't you just pass me?"

"No! you have to get out of the way!" the pony says. Judging from the tone and pitch of the voice, you assume that it is a mare. This may be the same mare that's been harassing your ass every time you take this path.

"Look, missy, there's more than enough space for the two of us here. Just pass, please." you reply.

"NO! I WANT YOU GET GET OUT OF THE WAY NOW!" the mare shrieks. A tantrum? In your walk? Excuse you? You stop and turn around. Your towering height over the little pony becomes obvious as you notice your shadow completely covering the little shit.

You squat down, and get face-to-face with this mare. This mare appears to be blue, and a regular pony without those wings or that horn. She looks at you with contempt.

"You overtake on the left." you say.

"I want to go faster! You're ruining this path!" she exclaims.

"Then just... pass me!" you say, a little louder. The mare flinches a little at the show of aggression. She holds her ground, however.

"No! I want this side! This is my side!" she says, stamping her hoof on the ground.

Jesus Christ. You scratch the back of your head. This is always the deal with this one. For a second, you're reminded of the assholes tailgating you in the slow lane when there's no other traffic on the highway. You figure the best option at this point is the simplest one.

You stretch your arms out, and strike a scary pose.

"Boo!" you shout, hoping that this'll run her off. It worked the past two times and hopefully it'll work again.

"T-that won't work on me this time! I know you're just a slowpoke who wants to ruin my morning routine!" she says. You tire of her insolence.

"Screw off, then." you say. The mare is left there, red-faced and flabbergasted at your foul language, and is now babbling incoherently. You hope that foul language isn't illegal. She's too busy fumbling around with her existence, and now you're safe to continue your jaunt as normal. Good lord.

Fast forward to working time, you show up do Dinny's for your usual bout of washing the dishes. You duck your head before entering the building to avoid hitting your forehead on the door frame. As you walk in through the door, you are greeted by a couple of your coworkers. You are then greeted by a familiar face! It's the ass-riding mare from earlier.

You walked in, and got greeted by your coworkers! This seemed to set the little blue ass-rider in a bad mood. You noticed this expression when you glanced out from the back of house after getting your apron on. You don't really care. It's dish time and this stupid shit won't get in your way for it.

Time to go to dish planet!

You are washing dishes.

You are washing some more dishes.

You are washing a few more dishes.

You are washing dishes on the clock, yeah!

You find yourself in a peaceful state of mind. The new dishes to be washed coming in, the clink and clank of ceramic touching each other, the restaurant's florescent lighting all over the place...

There's a simply beauty about it. Too bad because you just ran out of dishes to wash. It's a Monday now, so unfortunately the restaurant simply just isn't as busy as the weekend. Days like these make you thankful you have a nice little milk crate to hunch down on. Instead of wasting time and energy spent standing, you're chilling in front of the dish pit. You miss restaurant-grade dishwashing machines from your old world. They were cool as hell. They'd offer you more time to sit.

Oh, would you look at that! It's yellow serverhorse!

"How's it hanging yellow serverhorse?" you say. Yellow serverhorse is concerned.

"I have a name, Anon! My name is-" she says, but gets interrupted by new dishes being thrown in the sink by a careless employee. Some hot water splashed up, and just as it was about to splash yellow serverhorse a tiny bit, you raise your arm to block it. The water harmlessly drips off your forearm. Yellow serverhorse noticed this a second after it all happened, and now looks extremely flushed.

"Wow, Anon! That was quick! I-I-I could have gotten splashed right there!" she stammers out. After she says that, you hear a loud drip from somewhere behind her. Looks like some might have went over, huh? Yellow serverhorse is breathing a bit heavy now. You pat her head out of habit (fucking cats) and this seems to make her forget about telling you her name.

"It's all good, yellow serverhorse, I got fast reflexes." you say.

Before you can interact more with her, Palette calls to you from the front to go grab something for her. You get up, grab the napkin or spoon or whatever she wanted, and head back to your pit. Yellow serverhorse is gone now. You'd be more concerned if you didn't have dishes to do, so you get up and head back out front to see if any tables don't want their dishes any more.

As you're collecting some dishes for various ponies out front, and with said ponies being absolutely shocked at the idea of someone willingly taking dishes to wash, you now have a small stack of dishes in your arm. You eventually get to a table with a familiar looking mare...

Oh, right! It's the tailgating cunt! She notices you rather quickly, considering you're a tall creature in this world. It's time for some uncomfortable customer service. You don your toothiest grin, and head over to her table. You approach her rather closely, her breath now on the dirty dishes you are holding in your hands.

"Howdy there! May I take any dishes you aren't currently using, sweetie?" you say.

The tailgating mare hunches down, barely missing the table under her, and is now profusely blushing. You hear her mutter something under her breath. You couldn't hear what she said, so you leaned in a little further.

"I'm sorry ma'am, what did you say? My hearing's not the greatest, so I apologize." you say in the most soulless voice you could muster.

She eventually raises her head up, not making eye contact with you. As she is blushing and staring forward, she finally speaks.

"S-sure. Okay. Go ahead." she says.

You take her dishes, put it on your stack, and head back to wash them.

The rest of the night passes by uneventfully. The final bout of dishes and kitchenware hits you right at closing time, and as per usual, you knock it out quick. Palette approaches you.

"You know, Anon, we haven't had a dishwasher as good as you before! I just wanted to give you my praise before you go!" she says. Your heart flutters. Aw, shit. You're a good worker.

Atta boy! Your spirits are officially raised now.

You speak.

"That means more than what you can imagine, Palette." you say. Palette smiles. You now have a burning question in your mind.

"Hey Palette..." you start. Palette looks at you.

"When's payday?" you finish. Palette looks concerned.

After she hesitantly answered that important question, you head back home to troll bridge head quarters. You're really excited to have some cash of your own now. You might even get some money together to gain more clothes to wear. A true rich man has not one, but two pairs of blue jeans. Do ponies even have denim? As you drift off to sleep under that tent of yours, you ponder about how you're going to spend your money.

The next day, you head to the restaurant.

You remember Palette telling you the restaurant is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. You imagine what life would be like back on Earth if places just shut down like that on a regular basis. The poor little souls in this world get to have guaranteed rest and time off from work. Now, you're one of them!

You wonder how anyone in this land even stays at their job for longer than a short stint. You think it's probably something to do with their ass-marks... cutie marks? It's like they're toys or something. Maybe if they tattoo their ass it becomes motivation to not quit? Could they even handle a tattoo needle on their skin?

You are now at the restaurant! You head up to the doors, open them up and head right-

Oh, shit. You bumped your head on the door frame. It hurts real bad for a second, then fades into a dull pain. You reach your arm up and feel the spot where the door hit you. There's a slight bump there now. You've hit your head before, and you were hoping avoid it happening again, but accidents do happen.

The ponies inside the building didn't know that you've hit your head before. The inside of the restaurant goes quiet for a few moments after you hit your head. Everyone is looking at you. Yellow serverhorse moves first, rushing to your side.

"Anon! Are you okay? That looked like it hurt REAL BAD!" she yips out.

You're rubbing the spot on your head, not noticing everyone in the room is slowly advancing to you.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just got a bump. Gotta watch out for those doors, you know?" you say. Yellow serverhorse is right by you, on the verge of tears. You look around to find you're completely surrounded with babbling ponies. Everyone in the restaurant is around you now, on the verge of tears like yellow serverhorse. Palette is here, too. She gets closer to you from within the circle.

"Oh, Celestia!" Palette says, sniffing. "Anon, you don't have to act tough for us, we've all had booboos before!"

Your legs are now embraced in the hug of multicolor ponies. Everyone, EVERYONE is crying. Sobs are surrounding your very being as your personal space is being violated. You didn't mind all the hug that much, pony hugs are extremely soft. You just wish you weren't currently being soaked in a river of tears and snot.

The horde of ponies caressing your physical form and trying to climb up to your face sends you into a spiral of confusion. Why... why is everyone crying? Why are they crying so hard over a small bump? Why are they trying to climb you like a mountain?

"NOT ANON! NOT OUR POOR DISHPONY! HE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS PAIN!" you hear one of your coworkers cry out somewhere in the pile.

Between sobbing and screaming, you shout from within the pile.

"G-guys! I'm fine! You can get off of me now!" you holler. A symphony of equestrian wailing is your response. The whole situation is getting kind of gross. Your jeans are now rather damp, and you feel it start to get slightly sticky. The soft pony pile became a pile of tears and torment.

"We feel your pain, Anon! Let it out! It's okay! Do you need a doctor?" Yellow serverhorse shouts up at you from your leg.

What a strange sight and experience! Ponies cuddled up to your legs, crying because you got hurt, and you're stuck here because there's about 20 of them here. The floor is a crying mass of technicolor. You think about what your dad would say if he saw you in this predicament. After a minute or two, they all let go of you while still sniffing.

Palette recovers the quickest, and she clears her throat. This sends the whole room back into quiet, a pleasant turn of events for you.

"Alright, everypony! I'm so proud of you for showing your support to Anon. Let's give him his first pay!" she says, really happy now. Cheers fill the room, with everyone forgetting that they were just crying a moment prior. What's the deal with groups in this world and cheering at everything? They all back up, as Palette brings out a pouch with coins in it.

"You're earned this one, Anon! Thank you for what you're doing for us!" Palette says, presenting the bag to you in a field of magic. Everyone else smiling and nodding their heads, and going "uh huh!" in agreement.

You're standing there dumbfounded. But hey, look! Money is in front of you! You grab the pouch, and watch as the glow of magic from it dissipates the second you grab it.

"Uh... thanks. I'll be back here Thursday." you say, wearing a confused look on your face. Everyone is fine now.

"Guess I better get going, see ya." you add.

"Where are you going Anon? Don't you want to hang out with us for a little while?" Yellow serverhorse says to you.

"No thanks, back where I'm from choosing your place of work as a hangout spot isn't good practice." you reply.

"What? Why? Payday's my favorite day because I get to talk to my coworkers and not worry about my duties!" Yellow serverhorse says.

"I'd love to stay, I really would, but I got to get home and count this out." you say.

Palette speaks up.

"If you need anything Anon, just let us know! And be sure to stop by the doctor to get your booboo checked out!" Palette says. Heh, booboo.

"I'll be sure to." you reply, anxious about getting out now. You don't want to stay here for much longer. You have to wash the tears and snot from your jeans as soon as you can. As you turn to walk out the door, you turn around because there actually is something you need right now.

"Oh, before I leave, Palette?" you say. She looks at you.

"Yes, Anon?" she asks.

"When's payday?"