Dear Ferret Folks (All except Todd, who ADMITS to training Ping at his
Fuzzbutt Rodeo Al-Queda Training Camp for Ferrets)-
 
Oh, I suppose it was only a matter of time.  Yesterday morning my little
nephew Alexander stood in front of the Ferret Room door (his ususl first
stop at my house) and used his limited two year old vocabulary to
indicate that something was NOT right.  He yelled "Stuck!  Stuck!" with
great fervor.  I went to look, and sure enough, there was Ping.  Stuck.
In France, the 'Fricken Pigmy Hedgehog's closet, behind her plexiglass
barrier.  He had figured out how to get in there, but not out.
 
France wanted him out.  Badly.  He was obliviously standing on top of
her, while she cowered beneath her cotton t-shirt blanket, hissing,
spitting, and popping in impotent fury, while he repeatedly tried, and
failed, to leap her barrier and return to the Ferret Room.  Trapped as
she was beneath his weight and the padding of the t-shirt, she could
neither gouge him with her spikes, not sink her small, but quite
servicable insectivore's teeth into his flesh.  She wished to do both,
either, she wished to call in an airstrike with F-14's, she wished she
was a hand-grenade, and she could reach her own pin, pull it, and blow
Ping straight to hell.
 
I removed Ping, with some dismay, from France's closet.  Ten minutes
later, I removed Ping, with greatly strained patience, from France's
closet.  Two minutes later, I removed Ping, with extreme prejudice from
France's closet.  Thirty seconds later, he went for it again.
 
I locked him in the cat carrier while I constructed a temporary
ferret-baffle for the top of France's plexiglass barrier.  I took two
liter plastic soda bottles, and slit their bellies lengthwise, and pushed
them slit down onto the top edge of the barrier.  Now there was no easy
surface for Ping to grab, and heave himself up and over.  It worked.  For
a while.  It worked while Ping took a nice refreshing nap.  It worked
less well once he woke up.
 
By then, my husband was home.  I told him that we would have to do
something about the plexiglass barriers.  They would have to be replaced
with higher ones.  I told him what had been done to France.  He got mad.
He put down his dinner to look at the situation.  By then, Ping was
feeling as fresh as a daisy, had figured out a way around the soda
bottles, and was contentedly squatting on the floor of France's closet,
eating her supper of diced roast chicken one savory chunk at a time
while she hid beneath her exercise wheel and made a noise that sounded
like the transmission about to blow out of an overstressed Chevy Nova,
one of the old, muscle car ones with the really big engines.
 
It occurred to me with some horror, that NO DOUBT, that was why Ping had
jumped in there in the first place, to eat her dinner the night *before*
(cold chunked roast chicken again!) She was, on top of every other
outrage, *hungry*!  A pigmy wolverine had muscled his way into her
territory and scarfed all of her food!  He was doing it again!
 
My husband is a kind man, and sometimes an impulsive one.  France's
plight moved him to do something that we all later regretted: me, my
husband, Ping, but I think mostly France.  My husband quickly stepped
past me, and with a bellowed something to the effect of "I"LL SHOW THAT
LITTLE *&^%!!!!  , he dumped his full glass of water on top of Ping,
who shuddered, but never dropped his chicken chunk.  From France's
perspective, this must have been like a scene in a movie when there is
a wildfire, and helicopters carrying huge tubs of water dump them on
flaming hillsides to save our heroes, the embattled smoke-jumpers, there
on the ground trying to make a firebreak with their shovels and
chainsaws.  There was immediate silence from France.
 
We were all silent, contemplating the awesome reality before us, a
wet-newspaper lined closet full of ....what to call it....hedgehog broth?
A thin, evil bullion made from hedgehog waste and cold water and
newspaper pulp?  I just looked at it and sighed, wondering where the
paper towels were.  And the trash bags.  And clean newspaper.  This was
not an evil that coulld be ignored.  It had to be addressed, immediately.
Ping just splashed about in it, chewing, eyeing my husband nervously, his
fur in wet spikes.  My husband went for tools, I went for cleaning
supplies.
 
Ten minutes later, France had a clean, dry closet lined with fresh
newspaper, and her little hedgehog-shaped food dish was once again heaped
with chunks of cold roast chicken.  She had a new t-shirt.  She returned
to hiding beneath her exercise wheel.  Ping was returned to the cat
carrier.
 
My husband removed the steel backing plate from our dryer, and screwed it
into place in front of France's door, just in front of her plexiglass
barrier.  Ping can't jump it, though he tried for several hours.  Nor can
Ping claw his way through the circular hole in the backing plate that the
dryer vent hose used to go through.  There is a thick layer of duct tape
over it.
 
Lily asked could she please spend the night out in the house, instead of
inside the Ferret Room with Ping?  Permission was granted.  She burrowed
into the living room sofa, and slept well while Ping battered at the
steel plate all night long.  France, who is nocturnal, did not give a
damn that Ping battered at the steel plate all night long.  Both of them
turned in around dawn.  France ate every speck of chicken, licked the
bowl clean.
 
I'm going to Home Depot, now.
[Posted in FML issue 4847]