TOKYO—Finding themselves caught in a grisly tangle of wrecked vehicles and reeking with the unmistakable odor of burning fur, Tokyo commuters were stuck in traffic for as long as three hours Friday when a 12-legged catbus overturned at high speed on the KK Expressway, a main route into the city’s busy downtown districts. “It feels like this kind of horror happens every week now—just once I’d like to get on the turnpike without seeing a dozen mutilated paws flailing helplessly at the air,” said traffic safety officer Yuki Nakamura, 34, who said the incident occurred when a tabby bus conveying two little girls, the feline driver/bus entity itself, and several unnamed spirits attempted to circumvent traffic by bouncing off nearby power lines like a trampoline, misjudged its leap badly, and tumbled onto the roadway below at high speeds. “Thankfully, no one but the catbus was hurt, but someone has to replace those unsafe hunks of junk. Some of them have been in nonstop rotation since the late 1980s; there are few crumple zones or crash restraints inside even the most whimsical magical cat; and the aggressive behavior of cat buses in traffic is usually overlooked due to the perceived importance of, say, getting children to their dying mother’s bedside or what have you. The city should really adopt the junior witch rideshare program they use in Kyoto. Commuters would gladly pay more to take a daily magical journey through the sky if it meant I could get to work on time for once.” Tokyo officials are advising commuters to take the train out of the city in the evening instead and have assured hesitant riders that all rail lines have been fully fumigated after last year’s infestation of No-Faces.

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