Forty-five minutes, huh Alex? Well, Mr. Is He and the Princess must be
getting old...

Faster than a horde of Tasmanian devils, my eight can destroy the house
seconds after opening the cage door. My house gives up immediately. At
the sound of the cage door opening, curtains fall off their rods and
lamp shades tilt themselves askew, all in a form of domestic surrender.
I have yet to figure out the mechanics of this phenomenon - might be
useful on the missus at some point - but I digress...

We used to be sensitive to loud sounds; the garbage truck on Monday
mornings, fighter jets flying overhead from Kirtland AFB, and other
sundry noises like the ring of the phone when I know the boss is
calling. But nothing short of a nuclear blast gets our attention
nowadays. Upon hearing a loud noise, my wife and I used to ask each
other questions like "Are the neighbors still tearing down their garage
or are the ferrets in the kitchen again?" Now my wife and I will be
sitting in the living room, much like Onslo and Daisy, and upon hearing
a loud metallic crash in the kitchen tend to barely look up from the
TV. What for? It's already happened, and if it hasn't it most certainly
will. Is the water still hot for coffee, hon?..

The only sound that gets our attention these days is when we know
the ferrets are out and we hear complete and utter silence. It's an
unnerving sound. There are times our guys have made so much noise
that I've actually turned the remote control towards them and pressed
MUTE (Don't try it. It doesn't work and it wears down the battery
unnecessarily). But it's the sound of nothing that gets us worried
and anxious. "Hon, are the ferrets out? I don't hear anything..."

If the sound of nothing goes on too long, I get up and start wandering
the house looking for signs of ferret activity, signs like dust rising
from a pile of rubble, or running water covering the bathroom floor
being sopped up by the living room carpet. Usually they're just curled
up asleep somewhere, but an experienced ferret owner will never trust
that to be the case. It is said that one should never go looking for
trouble, but someone has to put the ferrets back in their cages and
clean up the mess, don't they?

"Honey, are you busy?..."

I should be thankful, however, that my ferrets aren't killing livestock
in search of a midnight snack. But that's probably because we don't
*have* any livestock. We *do* have a neighbor who has a dysfunctional
rooster who thinks that dusk (and any other time) is early morning and
crows to wake up any local farmers who might want to milk their urban
cows at said given time. Which gives me an idea...

I was wondering, Alex... could I possibly borrow Ping for a day? I
would return him happy, unharmed, and with a full belly. Think about
it and get back to me...

Roary
Albuquerque, NM

[Posted in FML 6001]