Warm buttery toast audibly crunched as a woman force fed a corner into her mouth and left the rest to dangle between teeth. She was late, oh so late, for work and didn't even have time to iron her waitressing uniform. Absentminded, the woman rushed about her tip-site of a living room hunting down keys, bag, phone and whatever else was needed – huffing and cursing all the while. A large tawny-eyed cat surveyed his human with feline amusement from the top of a faded and clawed sofa - tail swishing left to right and back again on loop. As the woman passed him for the fifth time, she suddenly stopped, lifting the cat above her head to his delighted purr and her intake-outtake of sighing relief.

"There it is!" She placed the cat down on the floor, retrieving the butt warmed note-pad and pen. "Silly Griffin." She admonished the feline - now watching her expectantly, from the old-take-out covered dining table, for one of the three f's – fuss, food or fun.

With a quick kiss atop Griffins head, the woman suddenly pivoted mid-hum and skittered towards her front door armed with coat and bag over one arm, keys in the other. It was a bit of a struggle to get out passed the several boxes of recently ordered practical shoes, but with enough kicking, tripping and swearing she was finally out and on her way to the restaurant. Being late was never a good idea, but at least the boss had gotten used to it after all the years she'd worked for him. As she scuttled into the main office, dropping her unworn coat and bag, the manager didn't even bother to look around, he could tell who it was just by the sheer aura of apologetic awkward radiating off the mass behind him – besides, he needed to finish his accounting.

"There's a childrens party in the function room on its way in about an hour."

"Oh please god no." The flustered waitress, trying desperately to pin a smiley-faced nametag to her shirt, visibly shrank. "Anything but that. I'll clean all the baby highchairs."

"Someone already switched for that duty." The manager shrugged, turning to frown at his employee's clothing-creased state and finally leaned forward to do up several buttons on her shirt that had come open or were never shut in the first place. "If you were here on time-"

"I know, I know. Sorry." She sighed, pulling away from his casual fussing of her appearance. "It's not just me is it?"

"Sarah too. She volunteered."

"Brave girl." She sulked towards the office door, picking up a till key on her way out.

Darting through the kitchen, minding not to get burnt by hot plates and overly animated caterers, she plastered on a too big smile as she walked through the restaurant trying her best to seem like she couldn't possibly hear anyone on table six trying to call her over to refill their drink. The function room was wonderfully quiet for the time being, another waitress sat on the edge of a decorated table between clumps of multi-coloured balloons, sharpening pencils.

"Hey Sarah." She ushered over to her colleague and pulled out a half-sized child's chair to sit on awkwardly.

"Hey Kari." Sarah rolled her eyes as she shook a pot of pencils. "Little brats from the last lot."

"I… don't want to know what any of those stains are." Kari grimaced as she took the offered un-sharpened container. "I see you've done pretty much everything."

"Yeah."

"Oh god, eight year olds." She pouted, reading the happy birthday banner spread across the far wall. "I can't believe you volunteered for this."

"I just wanted to leave early today." Sarah shrugged, plopping a clean and pointy implement of childish-horror into a pink pot. "This group is done at three and we can leave as soon as we've cleared up."

"Somewhere to be?"

"There's this exhibition at the history museum." Sarah suddenly looked excited, filtering through her piney to retrieve a brochure. "It's only on till Friday and I can't get off till Saturday."

"And… I was hoping this was going to be about a boy." Kari tutted, giving the pictures on the leaflet a scrutinizing once over. "You need to get out more. Go to places where men are."

"Men go to museums."

"Not any datable ones."

"Well, you'd certainly know about that, Kari. Where did you find that last guy from again? Oh right, pizza hut." Sarah slipped off the table; pencils discarded to the centre and stomped in the direction of the kitchen. "I'll start bringing up the platters."
"Least I got free chicken wings." She muttered under her breath and gave the exhibition brochure a pout before shoving it into a pocket whilst retrieving her phone.

Flicking through the list of contacts, Kari finally paused at one name in particular – Paul BarGuy – and etched out a cryptic looking text message full of kitten's, love hearts and numbers in place of vowels. Moments after the message was sent, her phone buzzed shocking her into dropping sharpernings all over the floor. With a curse, she knelt down to collect up the itty-bitty pieces of wood shavings and thumbed through the text message in her inbox before hastily typing out a response one handed.

"What are you doing?" Sarah enquired, having returned to the room balancing four platters of kiddie nibbles across two arms like a pro.

"I just dropped the pot aaaaaaand…"

"Hmm?"

"I have a date."

"Who is it this time?" Sarah sighed, placing the food on a clown covered table with random abandon.

"Some guy I met at Yates last weekend." Kari shrugged as she returned to standing and flashed her colleague a picture of a drunk guy pointing at his beer whilst standing on top of a bar with his shirt hanging around his elbows on her phone.

"Nice?" Sarah cringed; glad she was too busy with schoolwork to go out with the other waitresses most nights. "He looks, really, really, nice. A real catch."

"I wouldn't go that far." Kari scoffed. "But he has nice abs. He's meeting me in town at six to catch a movie."

"Hmm. You going to help me bring the rest of this stuff up or squat on the chair pretending to wipe down pencils for the next thirty minutes?"

"Let me enjoy the quiet before the storm." She pouted, beginning to fiddle with balloons now.
"Whatever."

Three thirty pm, birthday party over, function room cleaned up enough for nobody to notice the stains on the carpet and chewed nature of blunt pencils. Sarah had already vacated the premises, needing to catch her bus to the museum and having taken care of the pre-party set-up. Kari speed walked home, idly trying to tug various sticky clumps from her hair and clothes – she had just enough time for a shower and full-monty-shave. No point in lying about it to herself now, it had been a tough day and Paul-nice-abs BarGuy needed to appreciate the smooth nature of her everywhere tonight.

Arriving home, Griffin stretched his body like an accordion and purred his deep seductive greeting with the lick of his lips. Kari on the other-hand hardly seemed to notice the tabby-terror as she began throwing pieces of clothing onto the floor until naked. Tonight was serious business, the shower needed to be scolding to make sure nothing of that horrendous childrens party was left on her person, her hair needed to be just right, her clothes-

"Shit!" She screeched, mid-leg shave, waving the intense steam from the shower out of her eyes as she thought hard.

When had she done the laundry last? A week? A month? Two months? Yeah, that sounded about right, the washing machine had broken down and started leaking about two months back and she couldn't remember getting around to calling the plumber.

"No, no, no, no!" Kari, ran around her room draped in a mould smelling towel and began throwing piles of clothes too and fro giving the occasional outfit a sniff to check for cleanliness.

Nothing but frumpy old t-shirts and unused gym clothes left in her wardrobe. Maybe she could wear her waitressing outfit, he might think that was kinky, then again he might think she was an incredible loser as well. Now that she thought about it more, that pile of parcels down stairs by the door, it hadn't just been practical shoe's she'd ordered had it? One way to find out.

Skittering down the stairs, trailing water droplets and soggy footprints as she went, Kari began dismantling the boxes by the door, tossing wrapping, tissue paper and unusable items into the ever-increasing mess in her living room. Griffin hovered, perched like a watchful gargoyle on top of an overlooking bookshelf and began to clean a paw. There was a shriek of excitement from his human, a sound worthy of a responding question-mark meow.

Kari held a collection of several workable items in front of her eyes for a pride-filled giggle then jogged back up stairs to get ready. It wouldn't be as cute as one of her slinky, short skirt numbers but with enough accessories and maybe letting her hair down and curled she could pull off the jeggings and purple eighties big shirt thing she'd bought on a whim. Yeah, if she let it hang off the shoulder, one of those gym tank tops she never wore underneath and that weird chunky necklace she bought at that hippie fair – it could still work.

"Oh Griffin, tell me I'm fabulous." She gave herself a wink in the mirror as the tabby cat rolled to show her his belly. "I know right. Ok, let's you and me get laid tonight."

She turned almost tripping on a pile of underwear and lifted the eager-for-attention cat under one arm before making her way down stairs. The kitchen was – well, let's not talk about the kitchen. Kari dropped her fluffy burden on the only free space along the worktop – the cat in question following his human with an expectant gaze as a vaguely clean cereal bowl was produced and then filled with fish smelling food.

"I'll see you later big boy." She leaned in, planting a kiss and ignored scratch behind the ear on the felines head.

With a snort of amusement, Kari wandered away from the munching puss-cat and collected up her bag. As if an after thought on her way out, she paused, bending down to pick up the first pair of shoes her fingers came into contact with and walked out onto the street pulling them on. Practical and sort of went with the outfit – the man wouldn't be looking at her feet anyway.