One night over a year ago my wife was up late doing some work in our
computer room.  The room has a sliding glass door which leads out to the
front of the house and for reasons unknown, she had the door open a bit.
 
Normally, this isn't a problem but the screen was also slid back a bit, and
our ferret Max always has free roam of the house at night and of course
found the open door.
 
Fearing instant divorce proceedings due to my overprotective nature when it
comes to our boys, my wife spent about 45 minutes scouring the house before
waking me in a panic at 3am with "I can't find Max!  I think he got out!"
 
We turned on all the outside lights, searched the yard and then moved on to
the rest of the neighborhood for over an hour.  I'm surprised no one called
the police because we were in everyone's yard with flashlights, looking for
all the world like some cat burgler.
 
We came back to our house, where we had left the sliding door open, and
there was Max, a speedbump on the carpet in the computer room.  He had a few
burrs in his coat, so he was indeed outside and not just sleeping in some
dark corner of the house.
 
Who knows where he went or how far he got, but it seems they do have some
ability to find their way back, though I would NOT want to repeat that
experiment again.  Maybe the open door with the resulting familiar odor (no,
our house doesn't smell!) wafting out the door led him back.
 
 Mike
[Posted in FML issue 1698]