Yesterday, Black Friday 2020, I did something I never do— I went to a store. Two actually, Marshalls and Home Depot. I promised the teen.

We were already out-and-about due to agreeing to pet-sit for our cat fostering godmother: two personal indoor cats, two outdoor cats, two dogs, ten of the organization’s cats in the garage (including one kitten recovering from distemper) and 17 foster cats in the “cat alley” in her house.

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Somewhere around this time of opening cat food cans, after perusing Home Depot for drain covers and paint stripper and checking out Marshall’s for Christmas gifts, the teenager goading me into ordering Little Caesars for dinner. I ate way too much pizza, watched an episode of The History Channel’s The World’s Strongest Man (Viking Challenge episode) on Hulu.

I went to bed early, as I had volunteered to go to work for an overtime shift at 6 a.m. My superpower— innate time sense—allowed me to wake at 3:56 a.m. when my alarm was set to go off at 4:30. My goodness is that an early time in the morning.

Fog and Misty were the only cats awake at that hour. Fog and I went out to the sun porch to enjoy a cup of coffee and some cuddles.

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Meanwhile, Misty sat in the window sadly, expecting me to open it. When I didn’t, it either didn’t occur to him to use the door or he couldn’t figure out how to get through it.

The teenager made me a cup of iced coffee and put it in the back of the fridge so I could bring it to work with me when I left the house at 5:30 a.m. That coffee is so strong I don’t think I will ever sleep again.

It was so strange to see the sunlight streaming in the windows at the warehouse. Everyone working today was working on women’s inbound processing. So that was fun. And I even managed to run the tagging gun through my fingertip and someone manage to adhere the tag to the garment and my flesh. But it was dead skin so it didn’t bleed.

And for some reason, I felt compelled to try and remove my finger without ripping the tag off. And I did.

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