Half measures availed us nothing.  We stood at the turning point.  We asked
for more ferrets with complete abandon.  Here are the steps we took which
are suggested as a program of co-habition.
 
Step 1: We admitted that we were powerless over ferrets - that our lives had
become unmanageable.
 
Step 2: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves (ferrets) was in
charge of our lives.
 
Step 3: Made a descision to give up and turn our will and our lives over to
the tyranny of ferrets as we understood them.
 
Step 4: Made a searching and fearless inventory of our ferret's hiding
places.
 
Step 5: Admitted to God, ourselves, and to another human being, the exact
nature of their wrongs.
 
Step 6: Were entirely ready to remove all their poop from the corners.
 
Step 7: Humbly asked Him to remove our desire to throttle the little
monsters when we caught them chewing up the only copy of our term paper
(proposal, bill, etc.).
 
Step 8: Made a list of all people we had bored with the story of our shark's
latest adventure (but he looked so cuuute!) and became willing to make
ammends to them all by giving them pictures of sleeping ferrets (look how
he's got his arm wrapped around her...they must be in love).
 
Step 9: Made direct ammends to such people wherever possible, except when to
do so would bore them or others unnecessarily.
 
Step 10: Continued to keep an eye on the hiding places, hoping the car keys
would show up eventually.
 
Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our relationships
with our ferrets as we understood them, praying only for the strength to
play some more and the creativity to keep the ferts occupied.
 
Step 12: Having had a realization that ferrets were the best thing since
family and friends we tried to carry this message to others and to get as
many more sharks as we could before our so's had a fit.
 
Many of us exclaimed, "What an order!  I can't go through with it." Do not
be discouraged.  No one among us has been able to maintain a sour
disposition in the face of a wardancing carpet shark.  We are not
sociopaths.  The point is, that we are willing to have our family grow along
ferret lines.  The principals we have set down are guides to sanity.  We
claim limited sanity and little perfection...  Our personal adventures
before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:
 
(a)  That we were ferretaholics and could not manage our own lives.
 
(b)  That probably no human power could relieve us our our ferret obssesion.
 
(c)  That we really didn't want them to even if they could.
 
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      "The tide is turning...the enemy is suffering terrible losses..."
                                                -- Gen. Geo. A. Custer
 
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[Posted in FML issue 1422]