From Linda Winsauer:
<Of course, our litter box is in a corner.  (Wouldn't a cylindrical cage
<just drive a ferret up a tree???)
 
  Ooooh, did you hit a nerve.
  The first cage I built for the little rats was a sprawling (4' dia., 5'
high, 65 cu. ft.), five level, cylindrical condo, complete with full length
radius entry door.
  Everything I'd read had indicated that ferrets do their thing in corners.
Thinking myself quite informed, I'd designed such that there were a total of
only four ninety degree corners in the whole condo, all in the powder room,
giving it its rectangular shape.  (Okay then -- litter box; it said POWDER
ROOM on the blueprints).  Pretty good idea, huh?
  The various levels were accessed by a series of ramps, ladders, and tubes.
The kitchen and powder room were on the bottom level, across the floor from
each other.  Assorted playrooms and exercise rooms filled out the middle.
The master bedroom, equipped with a California King hammock, was on the top
floor, and boasted a 30 degree view of the Pacific Ocean.  The condo was too
large to bring into my house through any of the doors, so I had to assemble
it *in* the living room.  I was so damn proud of myself it would've made you
sick. (And probably has).
  All of the rooms were neatly labeled on the blueprints, and I showed the
whole set to the ferrets before commencing construction.  They approved
wholeheartedly.  Two days and $200 later the project was finished; the
ferrets moved out of the stifling, makeshift, barricaded bathroom pen and
into their new castle.  Ah, bliss.
  I didn't know that my ferrets couldn't read, or, that they couldn't read
*blueprints* at least.  You guys remember that old joke:  How do you torture
a moron?  Put him in a round room and tell him to pee in the corner.  Well,
my guys must of heard it before, because they weren't gonna be considered no
morons.
  Man -- they went _everywhere_, except in the powder room and the hammock.
I tried carpetting all the upper levels; no dice, just stained carpet.
Thinking they might be a touch shy, I sunk the powder room into the floor
and half covered it.  Nope, nothing doing.  It took me 15 minutes every day
to clean up all the floors.  On the bright side, I never had to empty the
litter box.
  Needless to say, the project was scrapped in favor of a mail-order wire cage.
Not nearly as impressive, but I'll take function over form any time.
  The condo?  Although I'd rather have the $200 and the weekend back,
demolishing it with a sledge hammer was quite a satisfying experience.  It
now resides 30' deep at the Santiago landfill.  May it rest in peace.
[Posted in FML issue 1152]