Ah, jeeze, I just posted a long one and then my browser crashed.  I'll
try again.  If I don't blow off steam here, I'll do it at this idiot and
get banned from a (different) list.  There's a new ferret owner there,
and here's the deal:
 
Last Friday, she writes in a panic because her baby fer ret has jumped
from the top level of the cage and is now having trouble moving--thinks
he may have spinal injury.  Of course everyone, including me, chimes in
with sympathy and advice.  Get him to the vet.  Now.  She chats back and
forth about it all weekend, plans on bringing him Monday.  Sunday, it's
down to "he seems better, I'll take him if he gets worse." Wh atever.
 
Today, she posts that her boyfriend crushed him in the sofabed--which
she says right off she knew was dangerous.  That was at 11.  Couldn't
take the poor ferret to the vet until nearly 4, when she got home with
the car, even though the poor baby had broken ribs, couldn't be touched,
and was bleeding from the lungs.  Oooooo and she feels so BAD and so does
he.  Really bad.  She finally takes her ferret to the vet, though, who
says that the lungs are probably punctured and he should probably be put
to sleep, but they can try another xray in a couple of hours.
 
That was the first story, anyway.  More outpourings of sympathy,
reassurances.  Don't feel bad, we'll pray for you, for your baby.  I
posted-- and I really was pretty gentle, even though I'm disgusted now--
that she did what she knew how, that we all learn through mistakes, BUT
that a simple phone call could have gotten her ferret to the vet hours
sooner, and that what she should learn from this mistake was to get rid
of all the things she already knows she's not supposed to have.  (I
didn't include the boyfriend on the list--as I say, I was pretty gentle.)
 
My post never showed up, so I emailed it to her.  Her response?  Well,
she can't keep her story or her chronology straight.  She spent her rent
money on the emergency vet so there's no phone at home, and she's so poor
that she has to have a sofabed because it was free.  (So's the floor!)
Emergency vet was today--not last friday when it should have been.  (It
seems they lost the phone before the vet visit.) Yet she's been on-line
at home with her two emergencies for days and still is, so the thing
about the phone/resources is a flat out lie.  (By the way, in the mean
time her on-list story is that the vet said to wait until morning.  Poor
baby can't eat solid food, so some sympathetic soul suggested baby food.
Good idea, she says, she'll get some tomorrow.  Tomorrow?)
 
And here's the last straw: She just thinks I'm "being just a little
judgmental."  Like that trumps anything and everything!  Now, as I
understand it, the faculty of judgment is a function of having a brain
and/or a soul and USING THEM!  That's why we have brains and souls, no?
Our judgments usually aren't negative, but they may be.  And really,
this is one of the few times I've been angry over a ferret mishap.
 
It's the only time I've been this angry.  All I can do is hope she's
making the whole thing up--including the ferret and not just the lame
justifications--for attention.
 
--Clover
and the rezweezils: Buddy, Cookie, Yogi, Butter, Buster (aka Fatboy),
Lew, and Marissa
"Always selling quality bedding and other goodies to help the ferrets!"
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZwclovergalQQhtZ-1
[Posted in FML issue 5231]