but I might be.  Had a mail ready to go out mentioning this yesterday but
haven't seen it so think I accidentally deleted it.
 
Anyway, the ferrets have helped me on something in a way which you might
enjoy.  After 15 years we plan to replace our old carpet with wooden
floors for most areas, and linoleum for the ferret room, with a touch of
soundproofing as well since we live in second floor condo.  (This will, of
course, depend upon the materials fitting the budget, so we have a lot to
learn about these subjects before we plunk down hard earned cash.)
 
Anyway, we figure that we'll try to do it piecemeal so that painting can be
done at the same time and the furniture moved only once.
 
This planning naturally resulted in my mind wandering into thinking of
other ways to improve the place, so I used an old trick; I said to myself,
"Suk, what does 'keeping up with the Joneses' mean to ferrets?".  Okay,
you can think now of the ways your ferrets keep up with each other -- food
stashes, sudden competitions over a toy mousie which had been ignored for
months, eating Cheweasels too rapidly at times so that others can't get
them, rolling in the mint plants till the ferrets all have extra smell but
the plants barely are surviving, and the topper -- laying turds over those
of another to cover their scent.  Yes, the ultimate ferret symbol of
keeping up with the Joneses is a fresh, stinky turd.
 
That image calmed me down back into the land of practicality awfully fast.
[Posted in FML issue 2891]