I could hardly sleep last night, and that was at least 13 hours after Jake
gave us a terrible fright.  Eric left the laundry room door open (again!)
without checking to see if one of the cage doors in the adjoining Ferrets'
Wreck Room had been opened to let the fuzzies come and go.  When I went
downstairs a couple hours later, I immediately knew what the empty cage and
open door meant ... five weasels in the laundry - a room with shelves to
climb, boxes to hide in, tools to steal, a real dryer hose to unfasten from
the dryer and escape through ....
 
I was calling their names and searching the room in a second.  No answer.
Probably asleep (please, God).  Ran upstairs for the squeeky toy.  Squeeked
and called, and sure enough, one weasel appeared.  Grab - Hug - Lock in
cage.  Checking the space behind the dusty Nordic Trac and the old mattress
off the sofa bed we trashed to keep the weasels safe, I saw another naughty
weasel emerge from a bag of fabric I'd used for costumes 4 years ago.  I
hauled that bag out in none too ceremonious a manner and found two more.
Four ferrets accounted for ... but where was Jake?
 
Squeek squeek squeek JAKE!  ... squeek squeek squeek JAKE!  I was beginning
to panic.  The room isn't that large, and there isn't all *that* much
accumulated junk in there.  I ran upstairs to enlist Rebecca's aid and yell
at Eric.  While Rebecca searched the room again, I circled the outside of
the house.  I couldn't be too sure that there was no possible exit from the
laundry.  Only people who have lost a little guy know how very huge and
hopelessly full of hiding places your neighborhood can look all of a sudden.
It seemed that my street tripled in length as I gazed down it.  I was
thankful I had trained him to come to the squeeky toy, but I wondered if he
could hear it outdoors if he were sleeping somewhere.
 
I rejoined the search in the laundry, and insisted we move some piled boxes.
"Don't bother.  We'd hear him scratching if he were down there," said Eric.
"Not if his head was caught and he was suffocating!!!!" I kept moving boxes.
I glanced into one long box that Eric's golf clubs came in, but it was
empty.  Suddenly I thought I heard scratching in the vent above me.  I made
Eric and Rebecca stop to listen.  Then I thought I heard a scratching behind
the boxes.  "I hear it!" cried Rebecca.  We listened.  I heard nothing.
Then Rebecca grabbed that long box and tilted it toward her ... and we all
heard the scrabbling of ferret toenails!  The box is only 6"x6" square and
too long to see the bottom easily, which is why I'd missed seeing Jake in
there.  Boy, did we shower that fuzzy with raisins and kisses!!!
 
The scary part to me was that he was there all along and couldn't let us
know.  When we first got ferrets, Sabine was missing for half an hour while
we searched high and low.  Rebecca found her in the bathtub, looking up so
intently from the bathmat she had climbed up and which had fallen in after
her.  I'm sure she heard us calling all that time, but she couldn't let us
know where she was.  I wish they could use that horrible noise they make if
you step on their toes when they are in other types of distress.  That
squeeky toy was good for the four guys who could come to me, but not for the
one that was stuck in the bottom of the box.
 
Rebecca and I agreed hours later that we still felt drained by the emotion
we had felt.  I went to bed two hours early, but for an hour every time I'd
begin to doze off I'd start to have a dream about losing a ferret.  For the
rest of the night I was awakened on and off with dreams about the ferrets.
They shifted from losing ferrets to Kermit having an obstruction (which I
have also been worrying about).  I was finally wakened once and for all this
morning by a dream about Oreo the cat vomiting all over because of some
massive hairball.  I had no idea I was so terrified of losing Jake until I
had all these letdown reactions.  I can't forget the immensity of the task
of looking for him out in the world, or even in every conceivable nook and
cranny in just one room.  And I still am so very glad he's okay!
[Posted in FML issue 2052]