“Lunch rush, ladies! Get those paws movin’!”
The boisterous voice of Alois rang out through the whole restaurant, even back to the staff room in the rear of the building, where waitresses Naomi and Carrie were lazily lounging while browsing on their phones.
“Is he joking? Like we’ve had a ‘rush’ at this place for months?” Naomi sighed. “I think we had five people in yesterday…”
“Four. And they sure didn’t tip that well, either,” Carrie confirmed dejectedly. “We gotta quit this place… I swear I pay more in gas money driving here than I get in tips. The boss is a nice guy, but-”
“I see empty tables and hungry customers, ladies!” Alois’ voice once again echoed through the room, a bit more urgently than before. Both Naomi and Carrie were, to say the least, quite confused at the sudden rush of business that the restaurant was experiencing. They were so confused, in fact, that they didn’t notice the bare concrete flooring of the room beginning to grow glossier and smoother, the same black-and-white checkered tile pattern from the rest of the restaurant sneaking in to the other parts of the building.
“...Well, the boss sounds pretty insistent, huh? Guess we’d get to work…” Carrie said, hopping to her feet and starting to walk out of the room.
But before she could even take two steps Naomi suddenly called out, “Hold on… You’re not going out dressed like that, are you?”
‘What’s that supposed to mean? This is my usual uniform…’ Carrie thought, but as she caught a glimpse of herself in the nearest mirror, she too realized that this wasn’t how she was supposed to look. A cheap black polo shirt and brown khakis? That wasn’t how a waitress is meant to dress!
“Oh, jeez. Thanks for the heads up! I swear, I got some major smog in the noggin,” Carrie exclaimed, hurrying over to the nearest locker and unlatching it. It swung open to reveal a pair of pastel-pink dresses, cut to just above the knee and with huge, puffy shoulder pads, and each with a matching white apron. Carrie reached out and grabbed the dress, feeling a jolt of static electricity as soon as her fingertips touched the satiny fabric.
Almost instantly, her fingertips began to sprout a pair of blunt black claws, while short and curly white fur slowly began to push its way out of of the skin around her hands. A fog began to descend on her mind as she began to take off her old uniform and toss it aside, and as soon as it hit the ground it seemingly evaporated into nothingness. As she started unbuttoning the dress like she was on autopilot, struggling a bit with the buttons thanks to the shifting shape of her transforming hands, each of her blunt claws gained a coating of shiny, candy-red claw polish, a perfect match for the rest of the decor in the diner. The curly fur on her hands soon spread farther, slipping up her wrists where it poofed out into thick clouds to curly fuzz around each wrist.
“Carol, your fur is just the bee’s knees!” Naomi gushed as she grabbed her own dress and got herself ready to go. “Did you get a wig chop yesterday?”
‘Wig? I don’t wear a…’ Carrie thought to herself, but then it became completely clear what her friend asked.
“Yeah, I went in to get the fur trimmed up. Ain’t it a keen nest?” Carrie responded effortlessly, primping the fur that by now had spread all the way up her arms and wrapped around her shoulders, in some places trimmed short against her skin and in others puffed up into curly fluff. Atop her head, her ears began to shift shape, stretching longer and longer until they came to rest upon her shoulders, while the color from her hair began to drain away, giving her a fluffy cloud of curls upon her head with the same texture as the rest of her fur. Without even thinking, she grabbed a can of hair spray from the locker and coiffed her hair higher and higher into the air, with huge ringlets forming and gently shaking with every movement the young woman made.
“Mmm, I look just beautiful, don’t I?” Carrie sighed out loud as she looked dreamily in the mirror, not even blinking as she saw her face begin to stretch forward and narrow into a slim, conical muzzle tipped by a wet, black nose. Her eyelashes grew long and thick, darkened with mascara that made her deep brown eyes stand out even more against her snow-white fur. “Eddie’s just gonna have to ask me out to the drive-in looking this good, right?”
“The poor guy doesn’t even have a chance. Word from the bird, I heard him saying he was thinking about going steady with you, Carol…” Naomi teased as she pulled on her own pink waitress dress effortlessly, with fur the same texture as Carrie’s puffing up into existence all along her body, although in a deep, charcoal gray color rather than in white.
In unison, the two young women pulled on their dresses and buttoned them shut, struggling with the top few buttons as their bosoms swelled a few sizes larger while their waists narrowed out to give each a perfect hourglass figure. Behind each of them, a short and eagerly wagging tail slipped out through a small hole in the back of each dress, and a fluffy brush of fuzz puffed out at the tip.
As the last of their changes finalized, the two poodle girls were nearly twins, except for the color of their fur, and they took a few moments to confidently pose in the mirror while double-checking that their fur was perfect and their uniforms were smoothed out.
“You’re on drive-in duty today, Nancy,” Carol said said cheerfully as she strutted out of the staff room, her tail and her rear end swinging from side to side with each step.
“Fine by me. I like seeing all the dreamy fellas and their keen machines in the parking lot anyway…” Nancy piped up before giggling airily. “Besides, you probably want to be in here with Eddie all afternoon, right?”
Nancy grabbed a pair of roller skates off the ground and slipped her paws into them, tightening the straps to ensure a good fit before pulling a pad from her breast pocket and slipping a pencil behind her ear. She sped right past Alois in the main area of the diner and out into the sunny outdoors, stopping off at each parked car in turn to take their orders. Meanwhile, Carol sashayed right past the open kitchen and peeked inside, blowing a kiss to the cook inside before giggling and hurrying off to the front of the house to seat the growing line of people waiting for a seat.
“What took you girls so long? I was working my fat butt off out here!” Alois grumbled, the chubby rottweiler wiping his sweaty forehead with his apron as Carol arrived to help with the lunch rush.
“Oh, you know how it is, boss… Us girls just take forever to get lookin’ pretty,” she replied cheerfully before rushing off to take another table’s order. On the way, she walked right past the badger and bulldog pair of greasers who had finished their meal and were headed on their way. “Come back anytime, fellas!” she called after them, blowing another kiss after the two before seeing how their paws were wrapped around each others. “...A shame. Pair of dreamboats like that… Oh well, at least they’re happy with each other. And I’ve still got Eddie…”