I apologize for getting this email out so late, but I've had school and
work and this is the first chance I've gotten to get to my computer.  In
a sense, I'm kinda glad I waited because I was amazed at the outpouring
of hope and good wishes I've received.  I thought I'd get flames.  Heck,
I probably would have flamed myself.  But not you guys.
 
Well...
We lost Bubbles on Saturday night.  Yvonne and I finally quit searching
at 3am, but we both had a hard time sleeping.  How can you sleep in a
nice warm house when your baby is out there in the cold with no food or
water?  You imagine the worst and you give yourself a reason to beat
yourself up some more.  I slept for a few hours, but at 7am I got up,
desparately hoping to find Bubbles in the cloth house we left outside.
Nothing in there but blankets.  Damnit, damnit, damnit...
 
I called a good friend of mine after checking outside in our back and
front yards.  He's the kind of guy who understands the finer points of
life.  He had given me a little statue of St. Francis over a year ago
when my ferrets had gotten the flu.  He told me that it always worked for
him and he wanted me to have it.  After telling him what happened, he
reminded me to ask St. Francis for some help and told me how I should do
it.  He told me that I had to say, "Hey, Franky, baby... I could use your
help."  Now, I'm not exactly in the mood for comedy, as you would think
one might understand.  He told me later that he was really just trying to
do the impossible and cheer me up.  He's a good guy, I guess...
 
I remembered that this St.  Francis statue seemed to have worked before
when my ferrets caught the flu, so I did what my friend had told me.  I
held the statue in my hand and said, "Hey Franky baby, I got a little
girl that could use some help right now.  Could ya help me out, maybe?"
I put St. Franky down.  He just sat there, staff in hand.  Boy, am I a
dumb bastard.
 
Every few hours I would repeat my search, hoping that Bubbles would pop
her head out and things would be OK again.  I went through the alley,
around the block, through my neighbor's yards, through some abandoned
homes... any place I thought Bubbles might be.  I looked under things, I
looked in trees... I can't even list the places I looked, and there were
a million more that I could have checked.  One doesn't realize how many
places a ferret can go in the city.  Believe me, I have a better idea of
how many.  So many holes.  So many dogs.  So many cars.  It's not a good
thing when you look at it that way.
 
I looked all day Sunday.  I repeated the route every few hours, and once
when it got dark with a flashlight.  When the sun went down it got really
cold outside.  I couldn't stop thinking about how cold it was.  My heart
felt like it was hit with a hammer.  I knew I had to get up for school on
Monday morning, but I just couldn't sleep.  I'm sitting here warm and my
baby's out there freezing.  Just freakin' great.  I somehow managed to
get a few hours sleep.  7am came around.  I went to algebra class (basic
algebra, because I am the retard you might think I am).  It's a two hour
class, with a 10 minute break.  During class I kept my self distracted
with algebraic expressions.  That's the one thing it's good for, I guess
- distraction.  But during the break my mind drifted and I felt myself
starting to tear up.  I went outside and got away from people by going
into the middle of the parking lot, into a median of dirt.  I paced back
and forth.  I looked up and thought about whoever it was upstairs that
might be paying attention to things right now.  I told him that I didn't
know his name, but I thought I knew who he was.  I asked him for some
help, not for myself, but for my baby.  I told him that none of this was
her fault.  I can't explain what went on, but it was real to me.  I am
not religious.  Neither is he, really, but even so... I got the idea that
he was actually listening to me.  People watching me pace and talk to
myself must have thought that I was nuts.  Maybe I was.  Back to basic
algebra.  Great, just great.
 
I was able to get through class and I came home.  I did another round of
searching, around the block, through the yards, ect.. no Bubbles.  I
went inside and looked at St. Franky sitting on my shelf.  Stupid-a**
statue.  Bad paint job.  I know my friend meant well, but... this is the
best he had?  I should throw this stupid thing out.
 
I started to lose hope.  I didn't want to do another search.  What was
the point?  I have been in the same places about 20 times in the last two
days.  Bubbles is not going to be there now.  She's not gonna be there
tomorrow, either.  This is stupid, it's a waste of time.  I thought to
myself that the only way she could have made it during the last two days
is if someone had taken her in.  If someone HAD taken her in, how would
they know who she belonged to?  What if they didn't even care?  What if
they thought that they were really lucky with their newly found ferret?
What, what, what... This was freakin' hopeless.  I don't want to deal
with this.
 
I forced myself outside to do another search.  My heart wasn't in it.
Near the end of my round, when I was heading back into the house, I
saw some kids going down the alley with a cat carrier.  I thought to
myself... hmmm..  maybe... naw..  I went inside.  My wife came in from
the back yard and asked me if I saw the kids with the cat carrier.  We
looked at each other.  I jumped on my bike and chased after them down
the alley, but when I got to the end I lost sight of them.  I couldn't
figure out which way they went.  I went left.  I went right.  Either
way, they were gone.  Sonofabitch...
 
I came back to the house.  I jumped on my computer and quickly made a
flier with Bubble's picture on it.  I took it to my wife's computer and
she printed out a bunch of copies.  At the very least, maybe the kids
would see this flier and have some mercy.  If they had my ferret, if
they did, maybe.  Maybe they just had a cat.  Heck, I didn't know what I
was thinking.  We put the first flier on the first telephone pole leading
into the alley, right by our house.  We headed down the alley and put
fliers all over the back side of our neighborhood where we thought
someone would see them.  We circled around and came back to the front of
our house.  We went across the street where there was an antique gas
station.
 
I taped a flier on the metal pole to the one side of the gas station.
I was ready to move on, when my wife told me to put one on the pole 20
feet away.  I thought it was stupid putting it on a pole that was only
20 feet away.  "We shouldn't be wasting the fliers," I said.  She gave
me a dirty look and I got out of the car and put one on the other pole.
Stupid woman.  I watched my neighbor pull up to his house, right next to
where we put the first flier.  He got out of his car and looked at the
flier, then looked over at us putting a flier up on the pole.  He ran
across the street to our car.
 
He asked us if we had lost a ferret.  I got strangely excited and my
eyes started watering.  I said, "Yes, about two nights ago." He said his
sister found a ferret about two nights ago.  He looked at the flier.
"Yep, that's the ferret, alright," he said.  If Ed McMahon would have
come up to my wife and I with a check we would have told him, "Not now,
Ed."  My neighbor told me that he would call his sister, and she would
bring the ferret to us within the hour.  He went back across the street
to his house.  What was his name again?  My wife and I looked at each
other.  We were crying and smiling, smiling and crying.  Sometimes just
smiling, sometimes just crying.  We felt like kids.  We went back home
and babbled to each other about everything and nothing.  Our baby was
coming home.
 
His sister showed up less than a half hour later with Bubbles in the same
cat carrier we had seen the kids carrying.  Geezus, I need a faster bike,
or faster legs or some damn thing.  His sister's name was Irene.  Irene
told us that she had found Bubbles Saturday evening.  She said that when
Bubbles saw her she came running right to her, running right up her leg.
Yep, we said, that's our Bubbles.  Irene said that she was really looking
forward to getting the ferret back to its home, because her pit bulls
were going nuts.  She was a really nice lady.  We offered her a reward,
but she said she couldn't take it.  I managed to get her to take it, but
she gave me a hard time.  I tried explaining how much this all meant to
my wife and I, but you can never really get that feel across to someone.
Irene was a nice lady who just wanted to get the ferret out of her house
so her dogs would stop going nuts.  I could understand that.  What a nice
lady.  What an incredibly nice, miraculous, wonderful saint of a lady.
 
We put Bubbles back in her cage.  She went right to bed and slept the
rest of the day.  Listening to pit bulls barking all day can wear a
ferret out, you know.  We got her up the next morning and she ran back
to bed.  Hey you, you gotta get up.  I got her out of her hammock and
put her in my wife's computer room.  Bubbles suddenly remembered where
she was and, before you knew it, she was back to her old self.  She ran
around the room as if nothing had ever happened.  There's a certain peace
in that.  I can't explain it, exactly, but there is.
 
I went back to the living room and sat down.  I looked over on the shelf.
St.  Franky was looking at me, staff in hand, like he wanted to belt me
with it.  I looked into his eyes, the eyes of a shepherd caring for his
sheep.  I picked him up and kissed him on the top of his head.  "Franky,"
I said, "I owe ya a glass of tea."  I took him into the kitchen and put
the teapot on the stove.  On the way to the kitchen I passed by my wife's
room and saw Bubbles climbing on top of a box.  I made St. Franky a
glass of McGrath's Irish tea with half and half and two sugars.  I heard
the other ferrets rustling in their cages.  St. Franky didn't want his
tea, so I drank it.  I looked out the window and watched some kids run by.
 
For the first time in three days, everything was gonna be OK.
 
Roary
Albuquerque, NM
 
ps.  Don't forget to put out some good thoughts for Dover.  He needs them
right now, wherever he is.  I'm going to talk to St. Franky myself.
[Posted in FML issue 4805]