Applejack loved family dinners, because it was great to kick back and unwind with her loved ones after a hard day’s work. Applejack hated family breakfasts because they were always too early, and if she was going to be up that early she might as well do something productive like chores.
She had great memories of family dinners, like when Granny Smith announced that the Appleloosan harvest was a massive success, and had awful memories of family breakfasts, like when Big Mac told her that he was their parents favorite foal.
Besides, the last time they sat down to have a family breakfast, Apple Bloom flipped the table over because they had run out of milk and Big Mac used the last of their mustard for his cereal. Cousin Apple Split hadn’t eaten breakfast since that day, clearly still traumatized from watching Granny Smith throw Apple Bloom out of the kitchen window like she was a newborn calf.
These memories left Applejack very conflicted when Granny Smith served them pancakes, waffles, and oats for dinner. Breakfast foods, but at dinnertime. It felt like heresy, like something Flim and Flam would try and sell them. “I swear to you, I dun thought it was six in the mornin’,” she said for the twelfth time.
“Maybe next time let’s not let Granny decide the menu,” Applejack whispered to Big Mac.
Big Mac didn’t respond because he was eating a pancake.
Around the table, cousin Apple Fritter looked extremely uncomfortable, cousin Apple Bumpkin was clearly playing hoofsies with her pegasus lover under the table, Big Mac was putting another pancake on his plate, and Apple Bloom was apparently trying to drown herself with a glass of milk.
“Anyways!” Granny said, trying to slam a hoof on the table but missing and utterly destroying a plate instead. “Fritter, ya said you had an announcement ya wanted to make?”
Apple Fritter cleared her throat. She was sweating buckets, and not the small kind. “Well, yeah. I, uh. I’m seein’ someone!”
“With yer eyes?”
Applejack ignored her senile grandmother and perked up. “Oh, congrats! What’s she do?”
“She’s a farmer.” Apple Fritter’s sweat could fill an ocean.
Applejack perked up higher. “Oh! What’s she grow?”
“Uh. Strawberries.”
A silence fell upon the dinner table, warm and thick and soupy like a tall glass of milk.
“Don’t tell me,” Applejack whispered.
“Glub glub,” Apple Bloom said.
“Pass the salt,” Big Mac said.
Apple Fritter gulped and smiled. “Her name’s Strawberry Sunrise.”
“FUCK!” Applejack stood up and tried to flip the table over, but Granny Smith had bolted it down three years ago so Applejack instead looked like an idiot. “You’re kiddin’! You’re datin’ that… that… that…”
“Bitch!” Apple Bloom said, pulling her lips away from her glass. Granny Smith smacked her with a rolled up newspaper but missed and hit Apple Bumpkin instead, because she wasn’t wearing her reading glasses (or as she liked to say, her smackin’ glasses).
“No, not that,” Applejack mused. “Where did you even learn that word?”
“Sweetie Belle learned it from Rarity because that’s what Rarity called Rainbow Dash after Rainbow spilled fruit punch all over her dress and Rainbow Dash tackled her and they started fighting until Pinkie Pie dived onto them to deliver a devastating Ponies’ Elbow!”
“That bitch. Anyways. Why are you datin’ that apple hatin’ scum?”
Apple Fritter wiped her brow. “She has more personality than hatin’ apples!”
“Impossible, apples aren’t just a personality, they’re a way of life!”
“A shit way of life if you ask me,” Apple Bumpkin muttered.
“Aw, shut up Bumpkin, this is why you’re thrice removed!” Applejack spat.
Apple Bumpkin tilted her head. “I got removed again? Nice.”
Applejack leaned back in her chair with a humph. “Well ain’t this a pleasant surprise.”
“That’s me!” said Apple Bumpkin’s girlfriend, the pegasus named Surprise.
“It is?” Granny Smith asked. “Ain’t that a surprise.”
“That’s me!”
“It is? Ain’t that a surprise.”
“That’s me!”
“It is? Ain’t–”
“Pass the salt, please.”
“What are you putting salt on?! We’re eating pancakes!” Applejack cried.
“The water’s a bit bland…”
“I hate you.”
“That’s me!” said Surprise.
Granny Smith squinted at her. “I thought you were Surprise.”
“I’m also a bit bland.”
“You are? Ain’t that a… wait, I said that already.”
Apple Bumpkin tapped a knife against her glass. “Well, moving on, Surprise and I have an announcement. We’re getting engaged!”
“Like, in combat?”
“No, in a relationship.”
“I’m going to relation-ship you to another country,” Applejack said in disbelief. “Are you movin’ to Cloudsdale?”
“Technically no, we’re taking that skylift. So the skylift will be doing the moving, we’ll just be sitting.”
“That’s worse!”
“Glub glub.”
“Apple Bloom, stop that!”
She didn’t.
Applejack groaned, slumping forwards onto the table and watching as Big Mac sprinkled parmesan cheese over his pancakes. “I’m sorry, that was rude. I’m afraid I’m still not over Apple Fritter datin’ my archnemesis.”
“She’s not your archnemesis,” Apple Fritter said. “She actually prefers to make structures out of triangles instead. She says arches are the work of the devil and she’d never indulge in the creation of one.”
“That’s exactly what an archnemesis would say!” Applejack said, slamming the arch-shaped table she spent months working on. “There are only two good things in this world, apples, arches, and the potency of sulfuric acid!”
“That’s three things!”
“She doesn’t know what the difference is between apples and sulfuric acid,” Big Mac whispered. “Rainbow taught her that they’re both good sources of protein. Can you pass the scallions?”
“That bitch!” Granny snarled.
Apple Fritter shrugged, looking at Apple Bumpkin for help, but she was too busy making out with Surprise.
“This is the worst day of my life,” Applejack said.
“The worst day of your life so far,” Granny Smith said, threateningly.
Another silence fell upon the dinner table like spilled milk, fresh from the cow.
“Anyone have any other surprises they want to announce?” asked Applejack, defeated.
“I do!” Apple Bloom said. “I’m adopted!”
