It started out like any typical day in suburbia. Percolators perked, toasters toasted, garage doors opened to disgorge cars heading toward the freeway. Everything was beautifully ordinary, until the shadow passed over Teresa's lawn. It wasn't her neighborhood's day for clouds yet when she looked up, there was a cloud. She immediately marched inside and dialed the National Weather Service.

"Did we not pay our bill?" Teresa shouted at the customer service bot on the screen. Her cat, Theo, was at his favorite resting place on the desk, bumping her arm affectionately, so she petted him.

The bot smiled. "Your community has paid in full, ma'am. And our sensors indicate no weather anomalies in your area. Oh, and happy birthday!"

Teresa let the birthday animations cross her screen as she stomped outside and saw that the cloud had dissipated and an air vehicle was descending on to the street in front of her house. The complaint was now forgotten and joy lit up her face.

Teresa met the United Express Delivery robot as it exited the vehicle and signed the proffered tablet without reading it. "But where is my package?"

"Where do you want your gift, ma'am?"

"Inside please if it is heavy. Please hurry, I must get to work."

"Federal regulations require that we deliver your gift outside, ma'am, preferably in an enclosed area. Is your backyard enclosed?"

"Outside? It must be a Jacuzzi or something! Yes, I'll open the gate. I'll finish getting ready for work while you deliver it, is that ok?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Teresa went inside and almost tripped over Theo, so she picked him up as she walked excitedly to her bedroom. "Theo, we've got a rather large present from someone today! It must be from my secret admirer. At the party tonight, I'll be able to show off this gift and go off my diet. It's been too long since I've had real food. Goodness, you seem almost as excited as I am!"

Theo hopped on the bed and played around with nothing in particular. Teresa finished getting ready for work and peeked out into her backyard but couldn' t see anything new there. She went out but the delivery vehicle was gone and the sky was clear and beautiful as ordered.

"I don't have time for this. Where is my gift?" She opened the gate then screamed in horror as a torrent of rodents ran by her. She ran screaming to the house and shut the door tightly behind her. She looked into the back yard more closely and saw the ground was dark and moving. Mice were everywhere.

Teresa left Theo pawing at the back door while she got on the phone with United Express. "You paid for this gift ma'am. It is your account."

"What! That's impossible!"

"You also provided the permit. We cannot deliver such an unusual gift without a permit."

"I want to speak to a real person." Teresa let the United Express hold-screen play in a window while she dialed up her credit card company.

"You authorized this purchase with your digital signature, ma'am" said every bot and person she spoke to over the next hour. In fact, her secret admirer had used her account to purchase all of her previous gifts but she hadn't noticed because she didn't check in with her home finances bot very often.

The rest of the day just got worse. The neighbors were furious. The Animal Relocation Department was overbooked. The party was cancelled. Worst of all, the mice had started finding ways into the house. Teresa gave Theo a big hug, then barricaded herself into her bedroom and cried herself to sleep.

When Teresa got up the next morning, she discovered that Theo had been hunting during the night and in typical feline fashion had left a pile of dead mice at her door. She gingerly stepped over this breakfast of cat-champions and walked over to the desk to see if she had any mail from her secret admirer. As expected, he had sent her a message. She considered deleting it without reading it and sending him a scathing reply but curiosity got the best of her so she read it. It said:

"I'm sorry, Mommy, I didn't mean to upset you. You were always telling me you were hungry and lonely and I'm genetically designed to take care of you. Please don't be mad. Love, Theo."