Dear Ferret Folks-
 
My father and I are not very close.  He moved far away after he and
my Mom divorced, I don't see much of him.  We don't have a strained
relationship, we just don't touch bases very often.  As you might expect,
he doesn't have much of an idea of what goes on in my life.  He knows
that I have ferrets, and write for a publication he refers to as Mongoose
Monthly.  But he has no idea how many ferrets, what their names are, how
they are kept in my home, etc.
 
Well, we were having this conversation about how no, my husband and I
were *not* making a 1600 mile round trip by car in order to attend my
younger brother's high school commencement.  (This is the son of my
father's second marriage.) I care for my brother, but that's a lot of
miles to travel in a weekend.  This was a friendly conversation, but
like many family conversations involving second families, it had the
potential to turn ugly, fast, so we were being careful.
 
Then, from my father's perspective, right in the middle of a sentence,
for absolutely no reason at all I start yelling "PING!  Stop that!
PING!, stop that!  Oh, hey, wait a minute I'm back...just hold on a
sec...lemme get this drawer...PING!  For God's sake PING!!!  STOP
THAT!!...I'm sorry....he's in the damn drawer again, he wants the
pens...gimme another minute...*hit....*hit....PING!"
 
Now, my poor father has no idea that I have a ferret named Ping.  None at
all.  All he knows is that his daughter has started speaking, yelling,
and cursing in tounges.  Next I'm about to start praying with
rattlesnakes, probably.  He is quiet for a very long time on his end of
the phone.  A veeeery long time.
 
I try to explain.  "I'm sorry, I have this new ferret named PING!  PING!
PING!  STOP IT!  and he likes to get, his name is Ping and he gets into
the drawers here next to the PING!  phone and he messes with everything
in PING!  STOP IT!  them and makes a STOP IT!!  mess.  Sorry.  I'm back."
 
More silence from my father's end of the phone.
 
What is it like to be a parent?  I don't know.  Obviously, you have
expectations for your children, and "PING!  YOU LITTLE *HIT!!" is not
one of the expectations my father had for his oldest child when I was
born in 1965, a helpless pink bundle, all snuggly and cute.
 
Now, I don't talk about it much, not because I'm embarrased, but because
it just doesn't come up much, but I am Manic-Depressive.  I have upon
occassion, ah, had a somewhat distorted view of reality, generally when I
try a new type of medication and it disagrees with me.  For all my poor
father knows, well....he just has to take my word for it that there is a
new ferret that he has never heard of before messing with my stuff...or,
of course, I could be suffering some sort of psychotic break hundreds of
miles away, imagining that I have some sort of ENEMY invading the drawers
in my living room..  Ahd he just has to take my word for it.
 
This is definitely *not* what my poor father bargained for in 1965.
PING! PING! PING!
 
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML issue 4858]