Yesterday, a learned person wrote:

If one considers that the consumed herbivorous bolus can be in any
stage of progressive digestive, enzymatic dissolution - depending upon
its gut location in the alimentary canal - then salivary masticated
fiber and beyond to the near fecal herbivorous sludge is going to be
diverted through the ferret's alimentary circuit, as the ferret dines,
and without the functionality of the incipient intestinum caecum (L).
Do we conclude therefore that the ferret cannot benefit from consuming
herbivorous digest, especially when one pulls up the ancient adage that
the portal to the small intestine at the duodenum is lacking a defined,
ruminant fermentation sack, the vestigial cecum?

I am a nervous wreck. I look OK on the outside, but might I possibly
be full of "near fecal herbivorous sludge?" I have taken a few Tums.
I hope they protect me.

I learned many things at my mother's knee, but never that ancient adage
that "the portal to the small intestine at the duodenum is lacking a
defined, ruminant fermentation sack, the vestigial cecum." Is my cecum
in fact vestigial? Is that why I sometimes feel inadequate at social
gatherings, and have an almost irresistible urge to hide beneath the
furniture until all those people are gone? Do I even *have* a cecum?
Would you like to buy mine on Ebay to help Travis L. raise cash for the
Black Footed Ferrets suffering from the plague? Oh. I see he auctioned
off his already for that very purpose.

Then there is the issue of the "consumed herbivorous bolus" that can
be in any stage of progressive, digestive, enzymatic dissolution."
Isn't that what killed Elvis thirty years ago? (Aug. 16, 1977 for the
preternaturally precise.) He was sitting on the throne that night
thirty years ago reading (he was the King, after all, so his terlet
really was as close to a throne as you can get) and he suffered an
acute dissolution of his consumed herbivorous bolus, and fell
face-first into the shag carpet, never to rise again?

I just know I'm going to have a panic attack at the supermarket,
obsessively reading the nutrition information on each package to
determine the presence or absence of salivary masticated fiber. Fiber
is good, right? If there is masticated fiber in your package of frozen
waffles, though, are they still organic? Do you just use lo-cal syrup?
If you use plain old Mrs. Butterworth's will they, like, burst into
flames and inflate your carbon footprint?

I am shaken by all of this, badly shaken.

I am going to lie down, now.

Alexandra in MA

Note: I am not trying to make mean fun of the author of this post who
obviously went far to try to help us out with a ferret health question,
I just love the language it is written in!

[Posted in FML 6069]