Hi FML!  This is Elizabeth again; you know, the know-it-all Bob's daughter.
Its been a while so I thought I would write and tell you how dad got caught
sneaking a ferret into the store.
 
Before dad went off to some physical anthropology and archaeology meetings
in St.  Louis and Nashville has week, and before he went into the hospital
for a few days, the weather here was very nice and warm.  I think it made it
to the upper 70s several times.  (Today it is snowing) Now dad is a big-time
ferret freak, but he love biking almost as much, and he decided to take
Moose and Bear out for a ride.  Dad has this soft-sided ferret cage thing
with net sides, and he hooks it to his bike handlebar thingies.  I wish I
knew what the thingies are called.  They have arm rests on them so dad can
sleep while biking.  (I know for a fact he once fell asleep while biking
once.  Honest.  Later he blamed it on a calf that ran in front of him, but
he fell asleep and ditched his bike).  Well dad hooks his cage thing in
between the arm thingies and bikes off with ferret noses pressed to the nets.
 
Bear and Moose usually go with him, but he sometimes takes Sammie or Stella.
This time, he just took Bear and Moose.  Andrew and I biked with him, and we
drove out on the Katie Trail, and soon dad talked us into biking to the
river.  Oh, fun!  Its only 25 miles from our house to the river, which means
it is a 50 mile round trip.  That doesn't bother dad; his legs look like
Popeyes and his bottom must be made of cast iron, because he can bike more
than a hundred miles a day.  Honest.  One year he biked from San Diego to
some whirlpool off Maine.  He wants to ride from Key West to Seattle in 1998
when Andrew graduates from high school.  I think he needs therapy.  Anyway,
I'm running again, so I thought it would be ok.  Andrew is like dad, always
ready to tackle another hill.  To tell the truth, I wasn't worried about the
distance, but my bottom isn't used to this new leather seat dad gave me.
How can something cost so much and hurt so bad?  Dad got it all hot and
oily, then made me ride on it until it dried, but it still hurts.  Dad says
I will get used to it, and then it will be the best thing I've ever rode,
but I don't trust him.
 
Well, because we really didn't plan biking so far, we didn't have much food
with us.  After we got to the Missouri River, we biked to a nice little
town.  We locked our bikes, and dad took Moose and Bear out for a walk.  Boy
do they love it!!!  They ran everywhere, almost escaped down a mole hole,
and when dumb people asked ever dumber questions, like, "Are they raccoons?"
or "When did you get a pet praire dog?" (honest!!) dad would get this little
tiny grin on his face and pull their legs.  He got one guy believing they
were a new breed of dog from Poland.  He said, "you've heard of polecats?
These are poledogs, short for polish dogs.  You've heard of polish dogs,
haven't you?" He believed him so much that when his girlfriend came over and
said they were ferrets, the guy argued with her.  Am I the only one who
thinks guys are brain dead?
 
Anyway, I had to go to the bathroom to make sure I wasn't sandpapering my
bottom off, and Andrew disappeared only where 17 year old boys can
disappear, so dad was left with the task of buying lunch.  The only place
open was a small store, so dad put a tired Moose and Bear inside his bike
jacket and went inside.  After a while, I caught up to dad just before he
went to the checker to pay for the stuff.  Usually, dad thinks hostess
twinkies are health food, but he becomes some kind of warped super-ecologist
when he is on his bike, and all he was buying was fruit and heathy junk, and
a small can of tuna for the ferrets.  Anyway, dad forgot his money was
inside the jacket, so he had to unzip it to reach inside.  When he did,
Moose's head shot out, which almost caused this really nice older cashier to
almost die of a heart attack.
 
The lady let out a yelp and the manager guy comes running over to see what
was going on.  So Bear had to poke his head out also.  Dad looked like a red
and black spaceman in shorts with two aliens poking out of his chest, the
lady was convinced giant rats were attacking her, and the manager was saying
something about how the store didn't allow pets in the store.  Dad calmed
the lady down and let her pet Moose (who has REALLY soft fur), but still the
guy wanted dad and the ferrets out of the store.  So dad said that his sense
of smell was shot off in the war, and the ferrets were a new experimental
animal, like the seeing-eye dog, but for smelling.  Dad was so sincere that
they guy started to believe him, so dad started saying how dangerous it was
to live without a sense of smell.  He said the ferrets were trained to lick
his face if they smelled something unusual, and to prove it, dad had the
lady put some of her perfume on his chin.  Of course, both Moose and Bear
started sniffing his chin and then licking it.  Boy, was the lady and guy
impressed!!
 
Anyway, dad bought lunch and the store guy said he could bring the ferrets
back anytime, because of his medical condition.  We biked home and got there
just in time before my butt actually fell off.  Andrew was mad that he
didn't get to see the fun, but dad said he would have only laughed and
ruined it.  I would have laughed if I believed it was happening!  I just
stood there with my mouth open.  Later that night dad rubbed my bike seat
with some kind of saddle oil, then actually polished the brass.  He denies
it, but I saw him!  He also takes his bikes completely apart every fall and
spring, then reassembles them after cleaning and oiling every single piece.
He has all sorts of strange looking gear pullers and stuff.  When he crashed
his bike last year and bent the wheel, he just cut the axle off and put new
spokes and a new rim on it.  But he won't even change the oil in the car.
He takes it to the station and lets someone else do it.  Dad, you are a nut!
 
Elizabeth (Daughter of Bob) Dad Rules!
[Posted in FML issue 1898]