The coin depicts the Ballottra, or weasel, a nocturnal animal, which
feeds on small animals such as frogs, rodents, lizards, nestlings and
small rabbits.  The coin is in copper and zinc with a slight percentage
of nickel.  It has a weight of 2.81g and measures 18.51mm in diameter,
with a plain edge.
 
This little innocent coin has caused more headaches and stress and
problems then anything I have ever encountered with the exception of my
ex-husband.  Today is the 27th of August, 2002 and it is 10:00 am and I
am going to tell you a little story.
 
This morning I went to the post office with a stack of ferret cards made
really nice and thick and had the ferret pennies in them to mail out to
the people who I recently got checks from.  I have mailed 4 of these
cards before and they went thru to the recipient.  Well I get to the
counter and this really good looking young postal worker informs me that
these cards are too small to go through the postal service.  He gets out
this card with dotted lines in various sizes and tells me that my
envelopes just do not make the grade.  Now I could have went off on him
or I could have told him that I sent 4 of them before and they made it
thru or I could have jumped over the counter and vented my frustration
over this entire ferret penny postal service and MailBoxes ETC.  fiasco
BUT instead I did something else.  (It helped that he was a hunk).  I
told him the entire story of what I was selling and what I have been thru
over the last 4 weeks and then I asked him if he knew what a ferret was.
He looked at me and said he did not.  So I told him all about Rusty and
all about ferrets and about you FMLers who were buying these coins from
me to help my ferret out.  The post office had just opened so there was
no line in back of me so I figured I would educate him and get this off
my chest in a nice way.  After I told him all this I happened to have a
nice shiny ferret coin in my pocket and I gave it to him for free.  God
he laughed so damn hard I thought he was gonna fall on the floor.  So
now the Arkadelphia postal service knows what a ferret is and what these
coins loojk like and who Diane Marie Taylor-Cauchi is as well as were the
hell the island of Malta is which hardly anyone has ever heard of.
Aren't you all proud of me???
 
So you see you CAN turn a negative experience into a positive one if you
really think on it.  I just had to share this with you.
 
Diane
 
P.S. He shipped the envelopes after he taped them on bigger envelopes
at his own charge.  HE paid for them out of his own pocket:-))))))
[Posted in FML issue 3888]