Dooks and hugs to fuzzies and their people!
 
I turned 50 this week - yup, I'm officially 'older than dirt'.  My
co-workers gifted me with the standard over the hill stuff, and a marvelous
bouquet of 50 pink helium balloons - truly a sight to behold!  Over several
days, the heluim gradually leaked out and the balloons fell (kind of like
what my butt did when I turned 40, but that's another story...).  By the
time I brought them home, they were only halfway inflated, but still had
some play value left.  My six furguys loved chasing after a single balloon
on a string and bouncing it off their noses.  Because it was only partly
inflated it lasted quite a while until Jersey finally took a bite out of
it and it slowly fizzled away.  It was great - the balloon didn't burst,
leaving multiple tiny pieces of rubber to be eaten.  Instead it just went
flat and stayed in one easily retrievable piece.  We turned the crew loose
with the rest of the balloon bouquet, and they went crazy burrowing through
them.  Somebody decided these were just too good to leave in the middle of
the living room, and the race was on to see who could stash them under the
couch first.  Every time a balloon was grabbed it suffered multiple
puncture wounds and fizzled away, doing the balloon version of a 'flat
ferret' and leaving a completely bewildered fuzz.  Jersey finally got hold
of one ever so gently and attempted to pull the bouquet of the remaining 40
or so balloons under the couch, which is only three inches off the floor.
As soon as he met with resistance he tugged harder, and then....fizzle!
Meanwhile, several of the others had gone under the balloon pile, which
began moving away from the couch apparently under it's own power.  Jersey
wasn't willing to lose his prize and grabbed a balloon to haul it back.
You know what happened!  We were laughing so hard we couldn't stand up, and
the ferrets were completely befuddled by balloon behavior.This was the best
birthday present ever!
 
Peg Francisco and the bewildered birthday balloon busters
 
(Important note: Carefully supervise your ferrets if you let them play with
balloons - they may eat pieces which can cause a blockage!!!)
[Posted in FML issue 3023]