take your cat to work day

I work in an office, for a company that has only 20 employees. All of us know each other very well and all of us have been working together for over 10 years.
After working at the same company for so long you would think it's monotonous, boring but it's not like that at all. We keep things interesting and fun.
Like today, for instance, was 'bring your cat to work day'. Most of us have animals. Some of us are cat people, some of us are dog people. I consider myself ambidextrous in my admiration for both of the species.
The day was set and activities were planned weeks in advance of BYCtWD. Gloria, I would say the most enthusiastic about the event, prepared a schedule for the cats. She also did research on physical and mental abilities of felines and put together a pretty impressive 'presidential physical fitness' tests for our cats to try over the lunch hour.
Most of us have 1 or 2 cats. Some of us have 3 or 4 cats. Only 1 of us has more than 5 cats. Melinda, the company ' cat lady' decided she was going to try and bring in 6 of her 7 cats. The 7th cat would not be in attendance due to his age. Mr. Dimplekiss is 23 and although in good health, could probably die at any moment from any thing.
I brought Gremlin to work with me and left Marzipan at home due to her recent bladder infection. I felt what she needed most was some rest at home.
The cats were brought in right away and their kennel doors were left open for the adventurous ones to go out and see our wonderful office. Not a single one ventured out. We coaxed and cooed - pulled out toys and treats. All of the cats stayed in.
Melinda's 6 cats stayed in their kitty hut, all on alert but none outgoing or curious enough to come out.
The more we discussed the oddity, we came to realize that really, having this many cats in the same space would be pretty intimidating - I mean there were 21 cats in the office building at that time. A lot to deal with when the cats were used to being kings and queens of their castles - why would they want to give that up now?
Noon rolled around and a few cats slowly slinked out of their kennels and sat on their owners laps. Gremlin got out and sat in between the computer monitor and the keyboard; his favorite spot at home.
Gloria sent out an email and announced her decision to cancel the presidential physical fitness competition because the lack of interest on behalf of the cats was quiet appaw-ling which I thought unfortunate because I knew Gremlin was a shoe-in for the vertical jump and for the laser pointer shuttle run.
Lunch time rolled around and as we pulled out our lunches a fire alarm sounded. Apparently someone forgot to tell us about the fire drill that was scheduled. We decided to leave the cats where they were seeing as how they weren't doing too much moving anyways. The drill lasted a total of 10 minutes. As we entered the building and back into our office we could see that things had taken a dramatic turn.
TO BE CONTINUED....