For a brief second I was able to relish a full night's sleep. A very
brief second. Or was it a nano-second? Then the reality of my life
began to overtake me almost as fast as the rush of pain from a
headache. The shaking and persistent clanging of a tiny bell by a
parrotlet could be heard right along side the constant chattering and
yapping of it's budgie friends from the next room. The other sounds
from the "zoo" seemed to amply after that. The once peaceful sounds of
aquariums bubbling, the cockatiel bellowing out the Moody Blues, the
scratching of nails on the glass doors in the kitchen from an impatient
tree squirrel awaiting his daily share of nuts, and now the sound of
loud clamoring coming from a cage where a goofy, Goffins cockatoo does
loopty-loops in it's cage like "spider-bird". My head. Owe, owe, owe. I
pop a couple of headache pills and I try pulling a pillow over my head.
It does no good. I then pull two more and smash them over my head with
my arm. And I lay there for a few minutes. Ah, sounds are dulled, but
not for long. The cockatoo is now letting out demanding screams that
are no less awful sounding than Mothra in an old Godzilla movie. They
can wait. But then, it is the imagined sounds that fill my head from
the ferret room downstairs that overtake me. I can "hear" Zee biting
and clawing at the cage door to get out and play. I can vividly see the
tiny DMK gurlz, probing, pushing and shaking cage doors on an intense
mission to get out. DMK kids lived their lives trying to problem solve
their way out of tiny, rusted cages outside at the farm where they
could see dirt, grass and puddles, but had never once in their lives
touched them. The guilt of rescues is a horrible thing for me. Their
stories haunt me. And that is why I only take 1-2 at a time. Then the
last straw hits. Pharos's nose deep in the dirty liter while speedily
digging in anger. I can see the poop and pine pellets flying all over
the cage ... the room. That's it! I can ignore the barrage of sounds
from the animals ... but not my imagination of what is going on in the
ferret room.

Just as I'm about to get up. Another flood of thoughts hits me. The
vision of Critter Camp in Illinois. Every morning of her life, Beth
Randall is awakened by crabbing sugar gliders, an Amazon parrot
yelling, "hello", the constant pacing of an artic fox, screeching from
a quaker, the digging by Degus, and much, much more that must make a
night in the rainforest seem quiet. But I know what really must get
her up. The sounds of dozens of tiny little nails clicking about and
the rattle of bells in toy balls. The thoughts of dancing, grateful
ferrets starting their day with a great party. And also the piles
of poop they are working on. The impossibility of her day ahead just
plain does not compute in my brain. I'm laying here dreaming of the
day where I wake up and all I have to dred in my morning is brushing
my teeth and wiping my butt. It could happen. It did for a brief couple
of years in college. But it will never happen for Beth. The baffling
and also incomprehensible thought then hits. She is "happy" about it.

How do I know this? I just came back from a brief visit of her exotic
pet rescue. Let me begin by explaining the visit came to be.

[Posted in FML 6501]