This is in payment for the horrible typo I made earlier this week.
 
While earning my undergraduate degrees, I was forced, er, eh, I mean I
volunteered to work at a wildlife rehabilitation center specializing in
carnivores.  Usually the clients were skunk, raccoon, opossum, and coyote,
but on occassion weasels or mink would come in.  Which is why I was
volunteered; I think it was to teach me a lesson on how to approach
carnivores in tight quarters.  Or maybe it was to keep me out of trouble, I
don't know.  All I know is, once a week I was stuck in a small room with
small razor-bladed furballs who could chew your arm off in a cold second.
For this I was awarded one measley unit in zoological field study.  They
gave me two for looking in wood duck nests, but I guess they figure getting
lots of smelly duck poop all over you is worth more than having wild animals
tear small chunks out of your skin.  (I later found out I was selected
because I had already gone through the rabies innoculations after my bout
with The Devil in the Mink Coat.  Innoculations?  HA...more like searing
puddles of pain tearing through my thighs and arms.)
 
One fine Sunday night, a time I especially hated because of a major midterm
in cellular biochemistry (I don't know Kreb, and I don't care to know him.
And I will always hate him for his work on the tricarboxylic acid cycle; as
if that was important....Who needs it anyway?  Take two vitamin C tabs, and
call me in the morning.) Monday morning exams were always the hardest
because the massive hangovers were still lingering on.  Since the animal
census was low, I thought I would take the six pound, still-virginal
textbook with me, a bottle of asprin, a cooler of pepsi (only cool
nature-nurds drink pepsi), cold moo goo from Friday night, and a tin of
anchovies.  I like them, ok?  Caffine, MSG, and anchovies can keep you awake
for hours, one way or another....
 
Waiting for me at the shelter was Flower, the resident skunk (We don't know
where she got THAT name, do we boys and girls...), Chewtoea the ferret, (in
an FFZ, but had an educational "green card" for ferrets), and two very young
longtailed weasels.  Flower had been hit by a car and survived to tell the
tale.  Crippled, she was descented, and became the unoffical mascot.
Chewtoea (pronouced chew-toe-ah) was a seven year old albino female once
used to teach mad, I mean med students how to entubate infants, but was
retired for other educational purposes, which meant she was going to be a
distemper test subject.  She somehow escaped that fate, and was turned over
to a kindly professor for mustelid behavioral studies.  The longtail weasels
were about six weeks old, and had been in the shelter for about a week.  I
helped rescue them; they were the only survivors of a bulldozer, which
during the process of uprooting a tree, crushed mom, brothers and sisters.
When rescued, they had been stored in a glass gatorade jar, lid on, but with
a few holes poked in the top.  (This is by a 6 ft 2, 220 lb lumberjack with
an atomic warhead detonition tattooed on one arm and "Sherry" over a red
heart on the other.  He made fun of my ponytail, so I grinned real friendly
like, and said, "Didn't you play football?  You look just like a
hebetudinous linebacker." He swaggered as he walked away...I drove like hell
just in case he wasn't as stupid as he looked.)
 
The kits were on two hour feedings, which were done blind and using rubber
gloves.  After each feeding was "negative human reenforcement" which,
frankly, was designed to scare the potty out of the little ones so they
would run at the sight of a hu-myn.  This was a rehab center, and animals
were cured and released.  During each feeding, Chewtoea would watch
carefully, wanting to get into the cage.  So would Flower, but she would
only watch.  After a couple of sessions, I settled in for a good study
session with Chewtoea curled up on my lap.  Have you ever studied biochem?
Its not so much a process of studying as it is of staying awake.  I failed
in both, and soon dozed off.
 
And I mean dozed.  A real stick-your-face-to-the-page-with-drool doze.
After awhile, I felt a belly itch, so scratched, and was promptly rewarded
with a very sharp pain on the end of my finger.  I looked into my tank-top
t-shirt only to find two very pink noses and four very bright black eyes
staring back at me.  Not being the excitable type, I casually, albeit
rapidly, got out of my chair.  A page of notes was stuck to my face, the
table tipped over, and my moo goo gui pan spilled on Flower, who wasn't very
happy at all.  Chewtoea was dumped, and thinking it was a new game, started
war dancing all over the room, and bumped into Flower who was doing a
handstand, shooting blanks.
 
I was the perfect picture of a biologist hard at work, trying to pull a
t-shirt away from his body without being bit.  I wasn't doing well.  One
weasel was digging a hole through my right rib cage while the other was
alternately biting my right and left fingers.  Not that their teeth are
sharp or anything, but I think I saw bone oozing through the holes in the
fingernails.  I quickly decided that the best course of action would be to
pull the t-shirt out of my shorts, and let them drop to the carpet where I
would quickly scoop them up.
 
Out came the t-shirt, but no weasels.  It seems they had decided to make
their escape by climbing over the top, biting any protruding portion on my
chest anatomy in the process.  Somehow, I got the biting-machines off me,
cornered them, and captured them with an offical 1985 Padres world series
ballcap.  (See, the Padres ARE useful after all!  I mean besides supplying
other teams with all-star players.)
 
For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how the beasties had escaped, and
how they had managed to find their way in my shirt.  About twenty minutes
later, I discovered the answer.  Flower and Chwetoea did it.  Flower would
climb up and open the cage, and both would go into the cage to look at the
little guys and steal weaning food.  The weasels would mob Chewtoea, who
would carry them down, mothering them.  She must have placed them in my lap;
she was there at the "Awakening".
 
I logged most of the particulars in the journal, except for my involvement--
I was still smarting over the mink incident-- and noted the weasels reacted
as expected to negative human reenforcement.
 
The moral of this story is studying the Kreb's cycle gets you know where.
For example, I later tried to ride my ATP down to the Circle-K for a quick
carb-loading, but the cyclic mechanism wouldn't work due to complete
oxidation of the energy source.  So I cycled over, but the quark, Val,
accused me of keeping my ion her and calling her sugar.  She said I was
repelling, and told me to get my fatty acid out of there.  I said "Pyruvic
it, these are negative charges, I want nu-cleus from you," but felt like
citric acid had been thrown in my face.  Amin-no acid, I'm positive it was
more like catabolic waste.  I had to leave because I was exhausted.
Besides, I felt as if I were pierced by Val's lance, but at a different
level.  I told her she could kiss my mass, because I didn't donate my energy
to anyone, not even with such a nice dumbell shape.  She said she would call
the ADP, so I said the call the CO two.  My friend said, "Use your membrane;
we have to recycle home before we are thrown in a cell!" I said ok, but that
it succinates.  Later I malated my complants to the managers PO four action,
but got na-dh because he was her fadh.  Oxy my friend, and he mit-ochondria
up the story for you as well.  (I wrote this on the exam, but it didn't
help, I still got a 3.6, and a note that said I deserved worse.)
 
Bob and the 13 furry misfits of wonder
 
Did you know Apollo snores?
[Posted in FML issue 1403]