What a lousy way to start a Wednesday. Sarah looked down at the kitten who was mewing demandingly at her feet. She already had a cat. A very nice, fat, queen-of-the-household cat who wouldn’t take kindly to the sudden appearance of a rival. “Shoo.” She nudged the kitten with her boot, but it simply rolled over onto its side and mewed louder. It wasn’t a pathetic, pleading, heart-warming mew, but a angry, outraged how-DARE-you sort of noise. With a sigh, she scooped the kitten off the cold sideway and unceremoniously dumped it on her shoulder, where it promptly bit her ear in gratitude.

A few short, curse-filled moments later Sarah realized the kitten was not coming off her shoulder. Claws dug snugly into her overcoat, the feline-from-hell viciously defended her perch with her needle-like teeth. A temporary truce was declared, where it was agreed that the kitten would stop putting holes in her ear, and Sarah would stop trying to fling the kitten into a low-earth orbit.

Which is how she ended up walking the rest of the way to work with the rumbling growl of her new nemesis as background music.