How is it that Bob inspires such silliness in me?  I think it's that he
really is a ferret at heart!
 
>By the way, Lynn.  That's "Bob the fert-sniffin' man" if you don't mind.
>At least you didn't tell how I checked all the available baculas....
 
Bob, you are absolutely right!  "Big Bad Ferret Man Bob", bears the words
*Big Bad Ferret...*, which even in your ferret-imitatin' case, could never
be true!  If you'd like to be known for "fert sniffin", I'll be the first
to agree!
 
Oooohhhh, Bob (voice rising like a kite, then dropping like a boulder into
a well).  Why, oh why, did you remind me about the baculas?!... my fingers
quivered to spill the bacula info in my first message and I resisted it...
now you've gone and done it!
 
Here goes.  Bob greets every new ferret fondly, with exhortations of love,
then proceeds to age the little critter.  Gazing at the teeth, feeling the
spleen and, finally, feeling the bacula!  "Bob," I asked, "can you really
tell anything from the BACULA (for those that don't know, the bacula is a
really strange looking thing bone, that, if it ever emerges, will scare the
pants of you -- hooked, spikey, long, curved - Bob could describe it better
as I've only seen one).  Luckily it's mostly tucked neatly away inside the
fur...the end of it is the tiny, pink little penis we associate with males --
the reason my poor guys never get kisses on the tummies.  ANYWAY, "Bob," I
asked, "how can you tell anything from feeling that?!"  "Lynn," he answered
patiently, "in ferrets it gets bigger as they age".  I must have gazed at
him with questions in my eyes, because, "This is not the case in men," he
volunteered sheepishly.  OH BOB, I already KNEW that!
 
So, that's the bacula tale.  After aging the ferrets, Bob looked at me and
asked, "So, Lynn, how old are you?" "You are not looking at my teeth or any
such thing, BOB," I answered.  "I'll bet I could guess how old you are, "
he persisted.  (Boy, does that guy have something to learn about women!).
"Bob," I answered with the patience of a tired Amazon warrior, "Go ask my
husband how old HE is..." So off he waddled in his too-tight-fittin' jeans
(remember the Seinfeld episode where Kramer walks about like Frankenstein
because his jeans are so very tight?) to my husband's shop.  Men will be
men.
 
Well, if Bob is spendin' time in Victoria into next week, and spending a
week in Seattle after that, the Bob "do" in West Seattle may happen next
weekend.  Any preferences for Saturday or Sunday?  If so, send them along.
A weekend thingy would be good in general because at least one person from
the Oregon Ferret Association is interested in coming, someone said they
might be interested in coming over from Montana, and a Californian has
indicated he might fly up if it's on a weekend.  I'm hoping such Seattle
noteables such as the widely controversial but loved-by-locals for-and-
despite-his-foibles Ed Lipinski (of Ferrets Northwest), as well as my
ferret-lovin' fert-mom vet Cathy Johnson-Delaney, DVM, who is currently
completing a long, much referenced paper on, among other things, adrenal
disease in our fuzzies!  It should be a low key, intimate do, focused on
the love of fuzzies.  Come watch Bob act like a ferret!  Oops, I mean, a
fert sniffin' guy, and meet some other fert-lovin' locals in the bargain.
 
Hope it all works out and I see some of you there,
 
Ferret McIntosh, I mean Lynn!  and the seven leapin' fuzzy lizards
 
P.S.  Sorry about the subject line; it should have read, "Bob's
Bacula Tale"... maybe that's one for the typo museum!  FLM
[Posted in FML issue 2268]