"Later, mama!"

"What are you gonna do downtown? Buy something?"

"Yeah."

"And what?"

"Well... that's a secret."

"A secret?"

"Gotta go! Later!"

I could virtually hear her sigh when she shook her head. Well, so I got outside. Still difficult to wear my new biker boots. Got blisters. Yeah... But it was worth it. After I checked a few stores downtown, I came to the conclusion that I really had to go to another city. Not that difficult. Got the train, ride of twenty minutes. Walk of five more until I got to that NICI store. When I entered, I immediately saw what I was looking for. My reaction:

The saleswoman said hello and asked me if she could help me. Well, I stood directly in front of the shelf with the FiM merch, so I just said "I already found what I'm looking for. But thank you."

"Oh," she said, "There were several others the days before looking for these. I never heard of that franchise before, it's totally new to me. But they sell well, so I won't ask."

After a bit of small talk, she also said that the three they got won't be the only plushies that this company will make and that Applejack will apparently come with hat. Yes!

But for now, I'm just happy to have these, no matter how show-accurate they are...

But that's just the first part of the story. I was totally aware of the fact that hiding these from my parents would be nonsense. And I was in a pretty good mood, so I decided to simply "confront" my parents with me being a brony. The fandom and the show are not a big deal in the media here in Germany. When I finally got home (stupid Deutsche Bahn and their delayed trains!), my mother's first question was "Got what you wanted?"

I said yes and walked into the kitchen. My father got interested too, so he followed me. When he saw the bag with the plushies in it, he asked "NICI? You bought plushies? Why?"

"Well," I said, "sit down, I'll tell you."

I spent about an hour to tell my parents about the show and the fandom, after I placed the plushies on the table. Having the three standing there helped a lot for demonstration. My mother could recall that she once saw an episode of a very popular talk show here that also featured the show and the fandom.

She was amused, yet fascinated, while my father simply left the room. Well, he thinks that fictional things in general are uninteresting, so... whatever.

But the most important thing is: I now have my first pony-merch ever and I can also watch ponies without minimizing windows or switching between tabs anymore.

And I'm in the best mood I've been in weeks.