Black Friday Fallout

Yours truly made the mistake of attempting to brave the Thanksgiving night crowds at Toys R Us in the name of purchasing a "limited edition" Christmas-themed Sing A Ma Jig. I'm sure "limited edition" meant "so few that it will incite a riot" so that the display of the toys resembled a scene akin to throwing a hot dog into a bear pit. But I never made it into said store to see if I was correct. Make no mistake, I tried to go to the store. I was in the general vicinity of the store. I actually had my feet placed on the cement of the plaza in which the store was. I even joined the line of humans also attempting to go into the store. But the line, which stretched the entire length of the plaza, was Queue Line Armageddon. Due to fire code laws, just to compound the problem, the line's movement was based on glacial-migration speeds. See, once the store was filled to capacity, it had to vomit sixty shoppers before they'd allow another sixty shoppers in.

There may still be shoppers in line at this particular store a full week later.

Ponies are not immune to these sorts of problems. They are herding creatures, after all, and when something like the Monster High fever that's hit the country trickles down to them, all hell breaks loose.

Several tiny ponies gather for some playtime. The usual baby toys, like stacking rings and pull toys, are scattered around. The twin babies are perfectly happy with these, until....

"Stack toys is fun! I like! Wanna play stack toy wif us?"

"Stack toys for dumb babies. I has something better."

"Bedder than stack toy?"

"No such ting!"

"Oh yeah? Den look at...."

"....THIS."

"WANT"

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Later that day, back at home....

"MOMMY WE WANT MONSTOO HIGH DOLL. WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT....."

"WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT..."

"WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT..."

"WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT..."

"WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT..."

"I've just about had it! All I hear day and night is 'MOM WANT WANT WANT' over these piles of zombie plastic crap things! I pulled an all-nighter last night because these two wouldn't leave me alone. And they're totally sold out everywhere so I can't get them anyways!"

"Yeah, Mom, they won't leave me alone either!"

"Well, you wanted to have more kids, we were just fine with these two and now your kids are driving you nuts and I..."

"MY kids?! Oh sure, now that they're doing this, they're MY kids?! Not yours?"

"Totally uncool, Dad. Really lame."

"Look what you did! Now Mom and Dad are fighting because of your STUPID GIRL TOY. Monster High sucks! Bigtime! You two need to SHUT UP about them!"

The twins looked at each other with fire in their eyes. Someone had blasphemed their object of desire! They'd show them!....

"WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT...."

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Defeated, the twins' parents knew they wouldn't hear the end of it unless they found those dolls. Mom had remembered an ad she'd seen up in town and took Dad to see it...

"This is my last hope. Maybe they'll have extra for this sale. Otherwise, Christmas day is going to be a nightmare. I can hear it now....whinnying from sun up to sun down."

"Wow, no meadow muffins on that 'every foal's must' thing! Those dolls send out a siren song!"

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Black Friday rolls around. Mom and Dad trot out in the middle of the night, barely awake and squinting to see, hoping to finally find the dolls at the Toy Stall sale. Surely Black Friday can't be as bad as they heard it could be....

"Okay, so when the doors open, I'll dash in and grab two of those Julio dolls and..."

"Ghoulia! GHOULIA!!! How many times do I have to tell you?! It's the one with glasses on, so don't forget! Please! Besides, it's 3 AM, the place will probably be dead, so what's the rush?"

"Yeah. Dead. Dead jammed to the gills."

"Oh, just SHOOT ME NOW! All these ponies are here for those dolls?!"

The crowd from hell. Every foal in the area wanted a doll and the store was swamped with beleaguered parent ponies. Some were already defeated, some were gearing up for a fight, and all of them were impatient for the doors to open. Every one of them was sure that they would get a doll even if the pony next to them didn't...

"Are the doors opening yet? Has there been any movement? Stand on me and look!"

"I can't see anything moving yet! Door's still shut!"

Even the babies were at the end of their ropes...

"Mommy, diaper FULL! No more room for poo-poo! Stinky! Change me!"

Suddenly the door opened and a manager appeared. She had instructions for the crowd...

"Okay, everyone! We're about to open! We only have a limited amount of Monster High dolls, so we're going to have to make them first come, first served! Please proceed in an orderly single-file line and..."

That did it. Pony mass hysteria. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it was the massive wait. Maybe it was all that Thanksgiving food giving everyone heartburn. The ponies had snapped. The entire crowd pushed forward at once, every pony struggling to get to the door faster and move ahead in the line. Order and courtesy went out the stable window. In the blink of an eye, the door to Toy Stall was choked with ponies, all kicking, biting, and trampling the others....

"Aaaand the brats will be getting standard Barbies, like it or not. Let's go home, shall we?"