Hi, all.
I met a little girl crossing the worn, wooden planks of the Rainbow
Bridge.  Her name was Jubilee.  And she had so many Brothers and Sisters
in Fur waiting for her, the whole Scruff You Gang Business had assembled
to meet her.
 
Well, you know what that means.  If there is a crowd at the Bridge, it's
only a matter of time until that message gets to the Wild Black Footed
Ferrets!  There's always one or two of them down by the Bridge, trying
to sniff out a party.
 
Jubilee was getting sniffed and licked and loved on by the Scruff You
Gang.  (Even I don't know all of their names!) There was a constant
stream of chatter and gossip, not all of them live together, so there
was a lot of catching up to do, as well as getting all the news about
their Mommy Karen back home.
 
It had been enough time...and there it was!  The first ice-cold beer in a
brown glass bottle was being rolled along the grass by two Black Footed
Ferrets, who were pushing with their noses.  But something else was
coming, too...What could it be?  It was a red, metal cylinder about the
size of a small fire extinguisher being rolled along in the grass by no
less than *ten* of the Wilds!  And an eleventh was dragging a cloth bag
like a sack behind herself.
 
The Scruff You Gang was by now pushing a protesting Jubilee over to the
puddle of beer that the Wilds had decanted onto the ground from the brown
glass bottle.  She cried "No!  I just know the bubbles will get up into
my snout and I'll sneeze!" Her protests carried no weight with her
friends, who kept nudging her over,laughing, closer to the puddle, until
she was standing in it and she started laughing, too.
 
But now some of her friends broke off to see what the Wilds were doing,
and I went to see, too.  The little girl with the sack put it on the
ground and crawled inside of it.  The delicious aroma of rubber filled
the air.  She came out with a mouthfull of uninflated rubber baloons.
She ducked back inside, and returned, with a length of shiny pink ribbon
trailing behind her.  Interesting!
 
Two of the Wilds, chattering away in that strange dialect of theirs took
the ribbon from the little girl Wild and ran up to Jubilee (who had no
more idea what was going on than the rest of us did) and wrapped the
ribbon around her middle several times, giggling as they did so.
 
A crowd of the Wilds were busily slipping the mouth of one of the white
baloons over a tiny nozzle on the top of that funny red metal cylinder of
theirs.  All of the sudden, the Baloon began to inflate at a tremendous
rate!  Two of the Wilds started to tie the other end of the pink ribbon
to the neck of the inflating baloon, which got bigger and bigger!
 
Finally, the baloon was fully inflated, and six of the Wilds held the
pink ribbon as the baloon rose a few feet into the air.
 
All this time, Jubilee and her friends were standing there, watching the
action.  At that point, one of the Wilds gave a piercing whistle, and the
Wilds holding the pink ribbon let go!  The Baloon rose in the air, and
so...did..Jubilee!
 
Her friends started yelling "Wings!  Wings!  Get your wings on!"  There
was a mad scramble and a rustling of wings as various member of the
Scruff You Gang strapped in!  All this time, Jubilee was drifting higher
and higher, yelling "Is this supposed to happen?" I looked at the nearest
Wild, who said only "Oops."
 
They got her down Ok.
 
A little guy came across the Bridge, his name was Snoova.  He didn't have
any friends waiting here for him in the Afterworld.  He also wasn't sure
where he wanted to hang his new hammie.  He asked me for advice, and I
thought of a good place!
 
We strapped our wings on, and lifted off together.  Snoova mastered his
wings easily.  It was a short, but very pleasant flight to our
destination, which, from a distance, just looked like hundreds of tiny
colored dots against a grassy green background.  As we flew closer, the
dots revealed themselves to be sofas.  Yes, I had brought Snoova to the
Plain of Sofas.
 
Sofas.  THOUSANDS of them!  Soft ones, hard ones, ones with slippery
fabric, ones with furry, fake leopard patterns.  All kinds of sofas!
Some were obviously occupied, because you could see the evidence of their
being renovated for comfort.  Great wads of fluffy white cotton batting
spilled from the chewed arms, gaping holes were chewed into the sides
and the back, upholstry was shredded and torn.  Comfy, just the way we
ferrets like them!
 
I suggested to Snoova that he look around, to see what he liked.  We
trotted here and there, sniffing and climbing any that caught Snoova's
eye.  Finally, he stopped in front of a Victorian love seat, beautifly
upholstered in red velvet with patterns cut into the velvet itself.  Its
wooden frame and trim were dark, and satiny smooth.  It's padded seat
was decorated with round velvet covered buttons in a diamond pattern.
This was the one.
 
At just that moment I pushed a button on my cell phone, while Snoova's
back was turned.  I had a little surprise for him!
 
We got down to the serious business of recreational vandalism, something
at which we ferrets excell.  Snoova's nearest neighbours, who lived in
the nubbly grey tweed model next door introduced themselves, and asked if
they could help.  Of course!  Many paws makes work light.
 
The four of us were busilly ripping mouthfulls of cotton fill and
horsehair from the seat, when Snoova asked, "What's that?"  Well, far
off in the distance, in the sky, was a white cardboard box being flown in
our direction by a dozen winged ferrets!  Snoova's head whipped around
towards me and he said "My Mommy!  My Mommy Denise told you 'cause she
loves me!"
 
True, and true.  She told me about Snoova's deep feelings for the little
chunks of Italian sausage peeled from pizzas.  And here was his delivery!
The button I had pushed on my cell phone signaled the pizza guys,
flapping their way to us.  The gently, gently landed about ten feet from
us.
 
Snoova had the left half of the pizza, the three of us got the right.
Someday, a long time from today, he is going to tell his Mommy how much
he enjoyed that pizza.
 
Sandee
[Posted in FML issue 4655]