Hey, Dude, this is Ping is He.
 
So you wanna know about shampoo?  Yeah, (hanging head, sadly.) my hoomin
washed us once.  Puma said she couldn't "find her center" for a week
afterward whatever that means.  It probably went down the tub drain.
She's into all this transcendental crap I don't understand.  Whatever.
It makes her happy, and I can still snuggle with her in the hammy when
she meditates cause she does that lying down.  She tried folding up into
a "lotus position" once, but she got her tail pinched in her back paws
and she was like, really REALLY nasty for days until the kink worked out
of her tail.
 
(Deep sigh) Women....anyway, like I said, my hoomin washes us once or
twice a year, she says "whether we need it or not." I'm thinking, like,
NOT.  The more often you wash us, the harder our sebacious glands (Puma
spelled that one for me) will work to secrete smelly weasel grease BACK
onto our skin and fur.  It's a vicious cycle, Dude... The detergents
in shampoo strip off the nautral oils we need for healthy skin, so the
sebacious glands go into overdrive, trying to put it back.  You can
actually wind up with a smellier, greasier weasel than if you didn't
bother to wash him so much in the first place!
 
And think about it from our perspective, Dude.  Smell is identity,
it's *everything*.  It *bothers* us when we smell like some artifical
rosebush, or "Springtime Fresh."  (Shuddering theatrically!)  There
is nowhere we can go to hide from those smells if they make us
uncomfortable.  Those are for hoomin laundry and toilet bowls, not for
ferrets.  Personally, it's kinda traumatic when I can't *smell* myself.
 
So if you gotta do it, do it mild, mild, mild, and rinse, rinse, rinse.
And remember--a healthy, happy weasel smells like a weasel for a reason!
Be glad we don't get to choose what *you* smell like!
 
Ping
in MA
[Posted in FML issue 5180]