Dear Ferret Folks-
 
Finally!  After weeks of waiting, my evil plan has come to fruition.
(Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!) You needn't be a ferret to be an FLO operative.
 
I work in a very busy doctor's office, we have maybe 100 patients a day.
That may not sound like a lot, but this is not a big hospital or an HMO
place.  This is a private practice, with a doctor who still makes
housecalls when he thinks it's necessary.  There aren't many of these
places left in this day and age.
 
Here's how it works.  You come into the building, and check in with
reception.  Then you sit in our waiting room for a little bit.  When one
of the exam rooms opens up, you go sit by yourself in the little room on
the paper-covered exam bed until the doctor or the nurse practitioner
comes in to see you.
 
What to do while you wait...what to do.  Well, many people turn their
attention to the magazine rack on the wall.  Their are dog-eared issues
of Time, and Newsweek.  A few limp copies of Good Housekeeping.  If you
are lucky, you'll find a National Geographic.  It's a very general
assortment.  Designed, I think, to bore everyone equally.
 
I decided this was not good enough.
 
I left home one day a few weeks back with a stack of magazines under my
arm.  I snuck into the office quietly, and went from exam room to exam
room, visiting the magazine rack in each.  In each rack I left a fresh
copy of Ferrets magazine, which, gee, my boss somehow overlooked
subscribing to.  He meant to get around to it, I'm sure.
 
Then I waited.
 
At first, I was very frustrated.  My mother in law and my sister in law
both work in that office.  One of them must have spilled the beans and
told one of my co-workers that I had articles in the magazines.  (I
didn't tell, I didn't bring them there to honk my own horn.  Besides,
I'm the only ferret person there.)  So bang!  Zip!  The news spread all
over the office, and my co-workers snitched all the issues from the exam
rooms so that THEY could read them.  Instead of working.
 
I had to sneak them back into the exam rooms, again.
 
Somehow, over the next day or two, all the magazines came out AGAIN.  My
co-workers evidently wanted to make sure that they saw each one of my
articles, instead of working.
 
So I snuck them back into the exam rooms again.
 
And they came out, again.  Now my co-workers were really getting into
reading all the advertisements for cool toys and accessories.  I kept
hearing "That's so cuuuuuute!  They sleep in little hammocks!"  Lots of
"Lookit!  It's wearing a little haaaaat!"
 
So I snuck them back into the exam rooms.  Again.
 
And they came out, again.  My co-workers started asking me all sorts of
off the wall questions that had nothing to do with what we all actually
DID for a living, no.  They wanted to know "How do you brush their little
teeth?"  (While wearing a full suit of medieval battle armour, I should
think.) "What does the toothpaste taste like?  (Beats me.  Minty rabbit?)
 
And I put them back IN AGAIN.
 
And today, finally, FINALLY, I saw a nice little old lady sitting on
top of her paper-covered exam table, waiting, and reading the
January/February issue of Ferrets.  And the look on her face was the look
a little old lady gets when she sees something really "Cuuuuuute!" Like
fluffy little ferrets playing, or sleeping in a snuggle pile, or wearing
little hats.
 
In fact, today I noticed that all the copies in the exam room racks are
looking a little battered, a little dog-eared.  They are being read.  My
boss evidently fears to say anything about the new reading material.  The
last time he gave his employees a hard time, remember, we auctioned off a
pair of his underpants on E-Bay.
 
Alexandra in Massachusetts
Honorary FLO member since 1997
[Posted in FML issue 4203]