[2-part post combined.  BIG]

After this weekend, I think my ferrets are out to get me. Possibly it
is because I ended the carbo-bribes years ago. Maybe they know I still
have some plump juicy raisins left in the house. Perhaps it is because
I took my IPod away from them. I don't know. All I know is, several
attempts have been made on my life, those ferrets won't make eye
contact, and they are keeping quiet in a manner that makes me very,
very suspicious.

It all started under my kitchen sink. I've ferret-proofed my kitchen
long ago, but I keep the ferrets out because I once found a dried
poopie in the middle of my stew pot. Unfortunately, it was spotted by a
friend that said in her imitable growl of a voice, "I knew your cooking
was crap, but thought it was just metaphorical!" After that, and
because she was so figurative, I decided the sheets AND the kitchen
would be ferret-free in my house. However, every once in a while, I
let the boogers "sneak" in so they think they are being bad little
monkeys. So I did Friday night.

Now, Friday night  -  while generally reserved for raunchy parties and
late evenings trying to figure out a way to brush my teeth with a paper
napkin without leaving paper crumbs on my gums - was strangely open,
much like all Friday nights the last few years. So I decided to put on
my guise as "Handyman!" and replace the nasty avocado green sink in my
kitchen with a super-dooper blind-your-eyes-its-so-white composite
beauty that has been languishing in a box in the corner for the last
few months. Hey, my schedule since returning from Europe last fall has
been, well, hectic even for me  -  the man that never sleeps. I haven't
even sent thank-you notes to Anja and Ernst, whom I love dearly, nor
to any other countless people that I feel are a part of my extended
family, such as my Hungarian, French, and German friends. I've just
barely started sending the sweet Dr. Moorman photos of my visit (if you
are reading this Dr. H, drink some water!). So, my "Handyman!" work has
suffered somewhat. Hell, everything has suffered. I am suffering now.
Come on, I suffer from AMW (adult male whining).

So, I donned my sleeveless Metalica t-shirt, hooked on the magical
leather tool belt, pulled my pants down a bit to show my plumber's
crack, and marched into the kitchen to combat the evil cast-iron
avocado green sink that has mocked me for so long. Now, only a very few
ferret people have been allowed into my abode, and none have seen under
the sink. I love the word abode; I want to put a sign on my bathroom
that says, "Abode Commode." An amphibian could be my Abode Commode
Toad, and the hallway could be the Road to the Abode Commode Toad. If
someone was afraid of amphibians, I could use a pointy stick to Goad
them on the Road to the Abode Commode Toad. Hey! Who flashed the shiny
metal object?

Any who, my home was built back in the 1960s. Plumbing to the sink was
custom, done with 1 1/2 inch ID copper pipe. Try to find that in the
plumbing isle at Walmart. Unfortunately, the drain holes in the new
sink were in different locations compared to the old sink, so the
custom fittings had to go. Not a problem for "Handyman!" A few moments
with my favorite hacksaw Marsha (I name all my tools; I have a huge
screwdriver named Big Richard and a tiny one called Little Dick), and
I was ready to lift the sink out of the hole it has inhabited for the
last 40+ years.

I thought I had chased the ferrets out of the kitchen and closed the
door. I swear I closed that door! I thought I triple checked it! So
you can understand why I would not have expected that the very second
I lifted that 160 pound cast iron behemoth onto my shoulders that a
ferret would be squatting in the very location I had decided to place
my trembling and shaking foot. You have to understand that I can barely
walk and chew gum at the same time, so trying to get my foot away from
stepping on that ferret was no simple task. Rather than do the ferret
version of the "Weird Al" weasel stomp, I intelligently elected to step
on the wooden handle of a rubber mallet I had just as intelligently
left on the floor. Needless to say, Newtonian physics took over and I
staggered back to the counter like a one-legged drunken turtle in a
cast iron shell. One might suggest I had, um, a "sinking" feeling. I
dropped the sink, all 160 pounds of it, back towards the hole, and
almost got my left hand completely out of the way.

"Almost" is generally a word reserved for losers and -- in my case --
rightly so. I was pinned by an evil green sink, silently holding me to
the speckled 60s-era countertop by my wrist, in a position that was
strangely like something you might view in an erotic gothic magazine.
Not that I read them; I have a strange friend. Anyway, I swore and
struggled and pulled a groin muscle, but I eventually got the sink
off my wrist, only to turn around to see ten of my ferrets silently
observing the situation. Rummy was standing on her back feet to get a
better view. Popeye would glance over as he quietly licked his butt.
The strange thing was that once they realized I was free, safe, and
relatively uninjured, they turned as a group and left the room in what
can only be described as "quiet disappointment." I am sure of it.

Paranoid? Maybe. I again closed the door, hefted the sink on my
shoulders, and staggered like a goat bloated on old corn mash towards
the sliding glass door leading to the great out-of-doors. See, the
old sink will be sandblasted and painted, and then will be recycled
into a ferret swimming pool for the backyard. The little suckers will
be swimming donuts. Well, at least they can splash around in it. I
returned after dumping my load (that phrase might make a few spam
filters take notice) and started phase two: plumbing the new sink.

Anytime I can light my propane torch I am in heaven. I sanded the
fittings, put them in position, and fired up the butane. You might say
I was "fluxing" my plumbing muscles. I soldered the first few fittings,
but as I was soldering in a new screw fitting on the monster pipe,
something leapt on my hip and a cold nose touched me lightly on the
elbow. Ok, that doesn't sound all that startling, but stick half your
body under a sink, put on a pair of safety goggles to eliminate that
pesky peripheral vision, hold hot flaming tools, and see what you do
when two pair of surgical steel claws dig into your ribcage.

I jumped. Not that far because a brand new composite sink was blocking
most of my leap, but I did discover that no amount of plumber's putty
will hold down a sink if you have yet to attach and tighten the sink
clamps. It was that wacky Rummy. Some of you might recall the story of
how I met Rummy for the first time. I reached into her cage, innocently
holding a bag of food that I was not sharing quick enough, and Rummy
taught me a life-lesson by clamping down on my thumb. Since then, Rummy
and I have reached an understanding; she doesn't bite me and I don't
scream like a monkey with it's tongue caught in a car door. Needless to
say, although I trust her and she loves me, I still have an instinctive
urge to protect that soft skin that covers my triceps, so I was trying
to keep an eye on her while concurrently attempting to turn off my
torch.

However, during the acrobatic exercises initiated by my polecat
princess, the angle of the torch brought its baby blue flame into
contact with my spool of silver solder. A big drip of hot silver solder
elected to fly away free just as I reached to turn the torch knob to
the off position. It landed with all its molten goodness on my left
middle finger, similar to the Silver Surfer alighting on a fleshy pink
and slightly soiled surfboard. I distinctly recall wondering if my hair
was on fire and I discovered it was -- if you count knuckle hair as
hair. Yes, I have just enough testosterone left in me to grow a few
meager strands so I can continue to emulate my distant primate cousins
and drive creationists mad. In any case, the sound of sizzling bacon in
the location of my middle finger caught my attention, as the smell of
frying pork is wont to do, and I soon realized that if solder was hot
enough to cause a third degree burn the size of a dime on a finger, it
would also cause a burn to the tongue that was instinctively applied to
cool the finger down. Ok, I am redefining the phrase "Burning Man." I
crawled out from under the sink, my swearing somewhat garbled because
of my burned tongue, and stuck my finger under the water dispenser in
the door of my refrigerator.

Come on! That is pretty smart; the water to the sink was turned off and
I had to cool off that burn. But cold water was running to the floor,
so the kitchen suddenly became a magnet for the remaining ferrets. I
don't know about your ferrets, but mine can hear running water at a
Nascar race during a F7 tornado, so not only did I have ten wet ferrets
in the kitchen, I had ten wet dancing, leaping, wrestling, war-dancing
ferrets that were impossible to catch in the kitchen. I suddenly had
the mental vision of a dumb floor monkey trying to drag a sizzling hot
propane torch out from under the sink, so before the image could come
to fruition, I dove under the sink to remove all dangerous implements
of mass destruction. That was when I banged the top of my head so hard
that I bit by burned tongue.

I am swearing again, but now you need a Star Trek universal translator
to figure out I am garbling words that would make a salty sailor blush.
How in the hell did Rummy, nay, all ten of the floor monkeys get back
in the kitchen? I went back to the door and it was wide open. I might
have forgot to close it the first time, but I know I did so the second.
How were they opening the door? So, I decided to perform my first aid
treatment on the dining room side of the door, so I could sneak a peek
what they were doing.

Ok, you know the joke; they did nothing. I decided the burn was just
barely under the limit for a visit to the emergency room, photographed
it in all its cool gory detail to email to my doctor, bandaged it, and
went back into the kitchen, carefully closing the door. A few minutes
later, there are the ferrets. Back outside: nothing. Back inside: here
they come. Stroking my chin to wipe off the drool seeping from my
burned and chewed tongue, I retrieved one of the miniature security
cameras I bought after a nasty incident a few years back when someone
kept "visiting" my house. Someday I might put those images on YouTube.
I pointed it towards the door, powered it up, went into the kitchen,
closed the door, and waited. Sure enough, in trotted Daisy and Rummy
a few minutes later.

I dashed out, ran to the computer and played back the recording. It
was Daisy the dastardly floor monkey doing the deed. She was using her
claws to skinny up the louvers covering the bottom side of the door.
She got to the curved door handle and grabbed it. Her weight was just
enough to unlatch the door as she slid off the handle and fell to the
carpet. I blinked my eyes in disbelief; I had recently changed the
boring round doorknob, replacing it with a stylish curled lifting
handle. She had to try this trick AFTER the change because it never
would have worked with a doorknob.

Well, I trimmed Daisy's claws, pulled off the molding and reversed the
louvers so she could not use them so easily as a ladder, and then put a
shim under the striking plate so the door would latch tighter. So far,
it is working. If she figures a way to defeat those changes, then I'll
block the door with boards and nails like Reverend Mel did to keep out
the space aliens. If water would only work with ferrets. Sigh.

So, I went back into the kitchen, ignoring the sounds of a determined
Daisy trying to climb the door, and went back to work under the sink.
I discovered the hard plastic mounting ring that attaches the garbage
disposal to the drain was broken when my head impacted the sink. I
called up the local hardware stores, only to listen to youthful college
students giggling because my perfectly good disposal was as old as they
were. No way I can fix the ring, I can't find a replacement, and I am
now waiting for a response to an email query sent to the manufacturer.
I guess I'll have to buy a new disposal. In the meantime, my dishwasher
hose is stuck into plastic tubing that reaches through the now open
disposal drain and over the center divider to channel nasty dishwater
into the opposite side of the sink, the tee that goes to the disposal
is clamped shut, and two buckets are strategically placed to catch
any drips. Hey, I'd hook the dishwater to a garden hose and snake it
through the front room to the hall toilet if it prevented me from
washing dishes.

I think I'm going to board those suckers out when I lay down my new
wood floor. I am sure they will figure some way for me to nail my foot
to the flooring or drive a nail into a water pipe. Someday you are
going to read in News of the Weird, "Man found stuck to wall with
construction adhesive after ferrets yet again defy his ferret proofing.
Ferrets contune to defy ferret proofing and act like wild animals,
defying domestication. Ferret with "Daisy" on name tag found holding
pole with a pig head stuck on top."

Dare I say it? Yes, just another scene from "The Lord of Defies."

To a ferret, defying an owner's attempt at ferret proofing isn't a
science: it is an art form.

Bob C
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[Posted in FML 5594]