Hi FML!  This is Elizabeth, extremely wonderful daughter of Bob C,
fulfilling her "contractual obligation" in order to sleep on his futon for
the next few weeks.  I'm taking advantage of dad having the flu (since I am
now over it myself) and using his computer while he is asleep on a cot on
the "library" floor.  Snoring.  Really loud snoring.  He really does have
the flu, and from the sounds of it, so do all the ferrets as well.  All are
sneezing and coughing and dad gets up every hour to make sure they are
all drinking enough.  He gives each one a shot of something he calls "bug
juice" and then he lays down on a cot and all the ferrets either sleep on
or by him, or just under him.  For the right price, I'll take pictures.  Do
you know how weird it sounds for a ferret to sneeze?  And they do it about
ten times in a row and shake their head at the same time.
 
I am now a firefighter!!!  It was so cool, but it was really hard work.
They almost tried to make me something else because they didn't have a fire
mask that would fit my face, but I just insisted and they bought me a new
one.  After that, it got really hard because then everyone knew me and had
to show me I wasn't so tough.  Then dad had to drive me back through the
snowstorm, and everyone heard about that, but now they were a bit nicer.
Dad drove down for my graduation, and all of the officers and sargeants had
to pump his arm and tell him what a great guy he was.  I was shocked.  Dad
wore a *SUIT* to my graduation!  He almost looked republican!  And I wasn't
even dead!  The officers took dad on the grant tour, and later that night
at the awards ceremony, I had dad pin on my fire badge.  When he was up
there, my sargeant made dad an honorary army fireman and give him a
minature badge.  Just for driving me back through all that snow.  Now dad
has a big head.
 
Now I go to St. Louis once a month for the weekend, and in the meantime
I will go back to school.  I hope to get a job soon working as a real
firefighter locally while I finish school.  The army says they will make
me an officer then, but I haven't decided.  I think I still want to teach.
But I really like to put out fires!!
 
Here is my tattle.  Dad had sent some papers out to be published in
journals, which I think makes him a little nervous because they send the
papers to experts who look into every little thing and make all sorts of
nasty comments.  Dad calls it peer review.  I call it crazy.  Well, last
week three of the papers came back on the same day.  I thnk each paper had
been reviewed by three or four people, so the packet was really huge.  Dad
set it on the table and just looked at it for a while.  Then he went and
got one of Sam's gifts, a can of Tui beer.  His ferret Tui is named after
the beer, and dad loves it, but only has a few cans left, so he only drinks
them on special occasions.  Then he opened the packet and made three piles.
He had just started reading the first pile when he just jumped up in the
air and started yelling!  Then he did something that looked sort of like an
Irish jig, but done like it was in the 70s, you know?  Then he started
yelling again.
 
The commotion got all the ferrets running around, and in a flash Tui jumped
up on dad's legs to join him in his dance.  I guess dad got startled,
because he made a sudden grab for Tui but knocked over his beer instead.
The beer went everywhere, all over him and Tui, on the floor, on the futon
(thanks!) and all over the ferrets.  Moose grabbed the can and went flying
out of the room and half the group went flying after him.  Tui was rolling
around in a puddle of beer, and dad was trying to run for a towel without
stepping on a ferret, so he sort of looked like a person with something
nasty on their shoe trying to run across a new carpet.  My boyfriend was
over to watch some spring training dad had on the satelite dish (I finally
figured out dad likes my boyfriends a lot better if they like baseball)
and was wiping beer out of one eye and crying out the other because it was
so funny.
 
The ferrets romped all over the front room for the next hour, searching for
any little drip of beer dad missed.  It took us an hour to find the can.
Moose LOVES cans!  Tui stunk like hell, so dad gave him a bath and sprayed
his butt with Brut, so all the other ferrets were chasing Tui down to sniff
his butt.  When I asked dad what it was all about, he just said his paper
passed review with only minor changes.  That's not the entire truth,
because I could make out on the paper, smeared by beer, but readable, that
some big-wig scientist guy thought dad's idea was oustanding.  Go figure.
 
Elzabeth, former wonderful child pooper-picker upper and now FIREDOG pooper
picker upper
[Posted in FML issue 2620]