My alarm started beeping and I groaned in tiredness as I reached over and pressed the snooze button before dozing off again.

A few minutes later the alarm began to beep again, waking me up, and I once again groaned as I pressed the snooze button. I didn’t feel like going for a jog this morning, something felt… bad.

I sighed to myself and rolled off the bed. I reached up from my spot on the floor and turned off the alarm so it wouldn’t go off again. I let out a grumbled sigh and flunked my head against the floor. I let out another irritated groan. I really-really didn’t want to get up.

I finally came to and stood up but as I looked out the window I realized it was pissing rain. My head drooped in depression. “I hate Mondays” I muttered to myself as I yawned then tossed on some cleanish clothes. They had stains on them from something but I wasn’t sure what. The stains were a yellowish colour that didn’t blend in well with the t-shirt.

I continued to mutter disgruntled ramblings to myself as I made myself a shake. “Stupid rain… stupid mornings… I hate Mondays” I murmured to myself.

The shake finally blended and I slurped it right from the blender rather than pouring myself a cup. I wiped off the leftover shake from around my upper lip then set down the blender before stumbling over to the washroom and grabbing my watch.

It was 4:26am. At least I was early. I slipped on the watch then walked over to the front door, straightening my posture a little so that I didn’t look like a stumbling drunk. I reached over and grabbed my jean jacket, which I had retrieved from the drying machine last night before bed.

I opened the door and immediately the hairs on the back of my neck prickled up. And I thought I was going to have a bad day yesterday. Eh maybe I was predicting it like a psychic or something.

I began my brisk morning jog and almost immediately my body became soaked from the pouring rain. However despite the shitty weather I knew that I had to keep in shape and not let myself slack off.

The water began to slosh around inside my boot with a slick wet feeling to it. For most of the morning I simply muttered curses to myself, mostly directed at me for forcing myself to go out exercising in the terrible weather.

At about 6:30am I saw the mail pony go by. I gave her a wave and she waved back before flying directly at me. She crashed into me but I was expecting it.

The first time Derpy had collided with me was rather unexpected and knocked me on my ass but now I always readied myself for her imminent collisions. I held her tight, absorbing the impact of her crash, then set her down on all fours.

“Hey thanks Ron. I guess I musta hit a gust of powerful wind” she said in her clumsy yet funny voice.

“Yeah… the weather’s real bad right now. So what’s up?” I asked and she quickly sorted through her mail bag before pulling out a magazine with a picture of Iron Will in a muscular pose.

“Here read this. I know you like working out so I figured you might need a few tips” she told me. I looked at the magazine and the headline read ‘Iron Will’s top ten secrets to quick muscles’. I checked the page number then quickly skipped to the article.

It read ‘1. The first step to gaining muscle mass is easy. Know your routine. Work out 3-4 times a week’. I chuckled to myself. That wasn’t a routine, that was a schedule, a routine was something like two sets of dumbbells then two sets of leg press then two sets of weighted squats then repeat.

I quickly read through the magazine and figured he hadn’t really got the gist of what I had told him. I smiled to Derpy then handed her back the magazine.

“Thanks… I… uhm… I’ll have to remember those tips” I told her with a nod and she smiled. She waved as she darted off to finish her mail run. I liked Derpy. She was a good pony with a proper head on her shoulders and would seem to always have a smile on no matter what happened.

Then it hit me, it was still raining. I sighed as I continued my jog. Oh well, I only had another hour or so before work started.

I continued to jog along and at just about 7:25am the rain stopped and the sun came out. Now usually every-pony would be happy, but not me. The sudden warmth of the sun rays made the wetness of my clothes start to warm up, giving me a hot wet sticky feeling around almost my entire body.

I could zip home right now and grab a new pair of clothes before…

“RON!” yelled out a voice, interrupting my thoughts. I swiveled to see the young mare known as Lotus trot up, looking rather angery about something.

“Good morning” I told her with a small smile but she jabbed a hoof into my chest with a rather forceful show of aggression.

“How do you know what kind of buckin morning it is” she scowled and my eyes went wide as I heard her use somewhat foul language for the first time. “So that’s it huh? You think you can just waltz around playing with a mare’s heart then
just… just… how could you do that!?... just don’t talk to me” she said as she began to sob then galloped off.

“Lot… okay… well that’s… interesting. I wonder what’s gotten into her?” I began but then realized I was just talking to myself. I let out a sigh as I went to go pursue her to find out what was wrong but then my watch beeped.

“Fuck” I muttered under my breath. I really needed to talk to her about this. I had a really-really-REALLY bad feeling about this one. It’d have to wait until after work. I muttered another quick curse as I took one last glance towards the spa, where Lotus had retreated to, before jogging off to work.

Author's Note

Alright... sorry for the short chapter but there was a cluster fuck at work today and it was rather hectic. I'll try and get off work early to answer some of the comments and touch up the story. I noticed alot of the people wanting me to do further editing... take it easy on me man, I'm just a Canadian redneck eh