It was a year ago today that Scandal died.  She was my first ferret, and God
knows that there will never be another one like her.  I had seen the ferrets
in the pet store before, and there was a vague interest in them, but
everytime I picked one up, it would be nippy, or distant, and my interest in
getting a ferret would die.  That was before I found her.
 
Originally, I had wanted a ferret because I had been raised around cats all
my life.  I had two roommates who were allergic to cats, but the ferret did
not affect them.  What better than a cute cuddly creature to call my own?  I
walked into the backroom of the pet shop one day, and there she was.  She
wasn't running around and dooking like the rest of them, merely staring at
me with a soulful glance.  I picked her up, and she was the one I wanted- I
just knew.
 
Scandal was the light of my life.  Her only mission in life was to cuddle,
kiss, follow me around the house.  When I came home she met me at the door.
(In between thoughtful things like packing my boyfriend a lunch for school.
She had a habit of stealing food, and all summer she stashed it in his back
pack.  It was quite a load by the time school started.) All it took to make
her happy was a plastic bag and a hug.  I have many memories of her that
blend together.
 
We got a second ferret, named Lugnut, about a month later.  He was 11 years
old at the time, but you would never have known it.  I remember because when
we first introduced them, Scandal made noises.  It was something that I had
never heard her do before, and I thought Lugnut was hurting her, so I bopped
him with a shoe.  Later did I find out that the only time Scandal talked was
when she was extremely happy.
 
And then it happened.  She and Lugnut were asleep under the sofa.  Sometime
during the day, someone must have flopped down on it hard enough that it
collapsed, and the cross beam broke, hitting her on the head and killing her
instantly.  I went ballistic when I found her.  The police showed up at my
house, concerned that it was a domestic dispute of some type, and were not
satisfied "until they got to see her dead body" that it was otherwise.
 
Michael and I took her up in the mountains.  I had brought a piece of velvet
to wrap her in, but somehow that didn't seem right.  She loved the dirt so
that we buried her there, with a plastic bag, to keep her company as she
went over the rainbow bridge.  Perhaps our tears made it seem like rain to
her.
 
After that, Lugnut's health went into a sharp decline.  One day he was fine,
the next day, he suddenly became sick.  He had a stroke, had bladder
infections, a little of everything.  We introduced him to a baby ferret,
named Insanity, and he came out of the tail spin eventually, but he has
never quite recovered.  Ferrets have soul mates too.  I think that he wanted
to die with her.
 
That rainbow bridge still goes two ways, though.  I've suffered from Chronic
Nightmares for a long time, and still sometimes, when the dreams hit their
very worst, I'll wake up because I swear that there is a little tounge
kissing me to wake me up, as she always used to.  I'll wake up, and Lugnut
will be looking at me, will heave his old bones up, cry softly, and even do
the weasel wardance like he used to.  Some people say that they have a
guardian angel- my little guardian is still Scandal.  I know.  And someday
soon, she and Lugnut will be together again.  He's 13 now, and she will be
coming for him, so that they can dance the weasel wardance over the rainbow
bridge- together again.
[Posted in FML issue 1668]