As the day ended, Mary was beginning to regret that the vials were no more. Being a cow woman was exciting and she had a great time exploring new sensations that came with it, but it wasn't without its drawbacks. For one, her udder was difficult to manage. It swayed everywhere she went, and when it occasionally bumped something, it hurt pretty bad. Not to mention her stupid bell. What started as a fun thing to try out quickly became a nuisance. Her hypersensitive bovine ears picked up the constant clatter of the metal and it was driving her nuts. She couldn't even remove it thanks to her thick fingers, which was another problem. It was hard to use much of anything with small buttons, like the remote or something as simple as peeling apart two pieces of paper.
The next day at work, she met people who felt the same way. A friend of hers was half-giraffe, and wouldn't stop complaining about the low ceiling and the bruises on her head from bumping into doorways. "I'd give both my arms up just to have a short neck again," she said. Her co-workers had mixed feelings about the situation. Some swore they wouldn't go back to human even if the vials came back, others thanked heaven they had changed back to human before the vials disappeared.
But another topic overthrew this conversation, and it was a doozie. Where had the vials come from, how did they appear at everyone's doorstep and later vanish all at once? Everyone had a theory. The government and aliens were the most popular. Mary tried to focus on her work, but not only did her fingers have trouble operating the keyboard, she couldn't keep her mind from wandering between the vials' origins and a lush green pasture.
Fortunately, Mary was able to find a co-worker with human hands to remove her bell collar and other accessories. She thanked him at least ten times before he ran off to a meeting. All that was left on her body was a black top which covered her breasts. Her other parts, obviously, were impossible to cover with conventional clothing. Mary wondered how long it would take before clothing manufacturers made a pair of pants for the new population of tail and udder folks?
Even newscasters were stumped at the events. They didn't report anything whatsoever relating to where the vials came from and why they appeared, they simply read their statements as if anthropomorphic beings had always existed. "And another barfight broke out downtown, this time between a group of alligators and two tiny mice...Weather is looking good for tomorrow, so anybody flying to work in the morning need not worry about goggles or a raincoat...And on a lighter note, Central City's oldest resident just turned one hundred three and, thanks to the vials, she's ready to celebrate her sweet sixteenth all over again."
So on went the days, with people slowly coming to accept their new identities, until it was exactly seven days since the vials first appeared on Mary's doorstep. She was preparing for work as usual, having just gotten out of the shower and toweling off her fur...