05/28/2026
Every morning at exactly 8:03, the office belonged to the cats before it belonged to the humans.
The sun would pour through the windows in warm golden stripes while the computers still slept, the coffee pot still gurgled, and the phones hadn’t started their endless ringing yet. That was Robert’s favorite time of day.
Robert sat proudly on the bookshelf like he personally owned the insurance agency. Which, in his opinion, he absolutely did.
From his perch, the orange tabby supervised everything with narrowed eyes and a twitching tail. The humans believed Tammy was the boss, but Robert knew better. Tammy simply handled payroll. Robert handled morale.
Below him, chaos was already unfolding.
Stormie — tiny, diluted tortie menace and self-appointed destroyer of paperclips — dangled halfway off the desk by one paw, batting at a stack of forms she was definitely not supposed to touch.
“Stormie,” Robert meowed in the exhausted voice of an older brother who had said the same thing one thousand times before.
Stormie ignored him entirely.
A paperclip skittered across the desk.
Then another.
Then the entire cup holding them tipped over with a dramatic CLATTER.
Stormie’s ears flattened. She froze.
Robert sighed.
Footsteps approached from the hallway.
“Oh no,” Stormie whispered.
The office door opened, and in walked Adon carrying coffee and breakfast tacos.
She stopped.
Looked at the paperclips.
Looked at Stormie hanging suspiciously from the desk.
Looked at Robert sitting innocently on the shelf like a church deacon.
“…Stormie.”
Stormie immediately flopped onto her back dramatically, as if she herself had been attacked by the paperclips.
Adon snorted. “You are the worst employee here.”
Stormie chirped proudly.
Meanwhile Robert puffed his chest out, receiving the compliment he felt he deserved.
By 9 a.m., the office was alive.
Phones rang nonstop. Printers hummed. Customers walked in and immediately melted when they spotted the cats.
Stormie took her job very seriously. Which mostly meant stealing pens, attacking shoelaces, and sitting directly on important paperwork the second someone needed it signed.
Robert’s duties were more dignified.
He greeted nervous customers from the bookshelf with calm blinking eyes. He supervised lunch breaks. He accepted chin scratches from exactly three approved employees and no one else.
And every afternoon, when the office finally quieted down, the two cats curled together by the window.
Stormie would still buzz with kitten energy, tail flicking while she watched birds outside.
Robert would groom the top of her head with patient little licks.
“You’re trouble,” he’d rumble.
Stormie purred. “Yeah. But I make the office fun.”
Robert glanced around the cozy room — the warm sunlight, the scattered papers with tiny pawprints, the humans laughing nearby.
He hated admitting when the kitten was right.
“…Maybe a little,” he said.
Stormie grinned.
Then immediately knocked another paperclip off the desk.
