You'd just reached your fifth year with farming conglomerate Hillburg Incorporated, and things were going well. You'd started out in a shipping center, boxing goods as they arrived and sending them to where they were supposed to go. You'd managed to get promoted to supervisor from there after two years, and just last week you'd been informed of another promotion - this time to regional supervisor of a new facility.
The new job came with a huge pay raise, plus stock options in the company. This was it, your ticket to the big times. From here, you could continue working up the corporate ladder and into the big leagues of this company, someday be able to retire with millions if not more.
The only drawback, as they explained it to you, was that you'd have to move halfway across the country, from Georgia to a small town in the middle of nowhere. A place called Greene Pastures, in Montana. You'd never heard of the place, let alone planned on living there. But the job came with a house, compliments of the company, so there's no need for rent, no need for an apartment hunt. And you'd always be able to call your family and friends, especially in this digital age. You weighed the pros and the cons, and decided to accept. The opportunity was simply too great to ignore.
Today was move-in day, and you'd been driving since three days before. Quite frankly, you've gotten sick of driving, and are ready to leave that car behind I your brand new driveway for however long you could. But you wanted to get there ahead of the moving truck with all of your stuff, and you had planned well, so you really only had yourself to blame for the long drive.
But now, here you were. Greene Pastures. After such a long trip, after two skeezy motel rooms, after so many fast food stops, you finally arrived. It was late at night, and you could barely make out your surroundings. You were definitely in agrarian country, that was for sure. Big tracts of land, presumably divided up among the various farming conglomerates that had stakes here. So much farmland, you had to wonder where the houses were. You had your new address in the GPS, but you certainly didn't seem to be getting near enough to see neighborhoods yet.
Eleven o clock at night - it was late and you were starting to get hungry. Shouldn't have passed on dinner a few hours ago.
Well, you certainly weren't going to find your new neighborhood any time soon, so you decided it was best to just stop for a meal. Maybe you could ask the server for a bit of help finding the place, kill two birds with one stone so to speak. You pull into the parking lot, an empty parking lot, for Dot's 24 Hour Diner. Seemed good enough. You could certainly go for a nice cheeseburger.
You step inside, the door hitting a cowbell at the top with a dull clunk. The place was nice, very clean, very retro, decorated like an old-style 1950s diner. Very quaint, but completely empty. Sleepy town, or maybe you had just made it after closing? You hoped that wasn't the case, as you were starving.
"Sit down anywhere," you hear a woman's voice from the kitchen. It was definitely a woman's voice, even though it sounded on the deeper end of things.
Glancing around, you find a booth to your liking, and sit down, vinyl seat squeaking a bit as you do. No menu. Huh. No ketchup, no mustard. Very strange. What kind of diner did you just step into?
Maybe the menu is online, you decide, and pull up your phone to try and find the website. You begin searching the various keywords, but don't have any luck.
"You're new in town," you suddenly hear the woman's voice next to you. You were so wrapped up in trying to find a menu you didn't hear her approach.
"Oh, uh, yes, how did you-" you trail off as you look up to her, and your eyes go wide, sudden shock scooting you back in your seat as you see what's clearly impossible standing before you.
The woman is wearing nothing but an apron, pockets in the front holding pens and a waiter's notepad. But that wasn't what struck you the most. It was the thin fur, white with black spots, that coasted her body. It was the long, ropy tail you could see as it swished behind her. It was the horns on her head. It was the bulge under the apron that indicated the udder underneath. It was her feet, which were clearly hooves.
"Y-y-y-y..." you stammer, brain refusing to understand what you were seeing. This wasn't possible, was it? But your brain was telling you it was true. This woman was half cow somehow.
"I'll give you a moment to regain your composure, sweetheart, and then I'll come take your order," she said with a soft smile across her broad, snoutlike face before walking away from you, hooves clomping on the linoleum floor.
It's a strange thing, but the first rational bought that comes to your mind is that you're definitely not getting that burger you hoped for.