Well, the herd accomplished another near-heart-attack for me this weekend.
 
Since I'm in a one-bedroom apartment with a bunch of mountain biking gear
in the bike shop, I mean living room, the Herd has to be contained in the
kitchen and the bathroom when they have ferret freedom.
 
So on Saturday, I put the three boys in the kitchen and the two girls in
the bathroom, and went about my business doing laundry & such.
 
About 1/2 hour later, I wandered over to the kitchen to check on the boys
because they seemed very quiet.  My heart leapt into my throat as I
realized the BROILER on the oven was OPEN!  I jumped the two feet in the
air to clear the door barrier and called out "Ferrets!  Chitlins!  Where
are my ferrets?!" Slinky & Kyle popped out from under the pantry shelves
and Gizmo crawled out of his sweatshirt in the corner.  I was so relieved!
They all looked at me like "Ok, now why did you wake us up?"
 
So a few hours later, when it was time for bed, I put Slinky & Gizmo in the
cage and picked up Kyle to cuddle him (he's a cuddler when he wants to be).
Well I noticed something wrong with his whiskers.  Upon closer inspection I
noticed that they were BURNED OFF!  He has only stubs on the right side of
his face and a few burned short on the left side.
 
So I grabbed up Gizmo & inspected him and he was OK (Giz is the smart one
anyway).  But when I looked at Slinky, he had a few burned off too, though
not as bad as Kyle.  I checked all paw pads and stuff and found no other
damage luckily.
 
AAAAH!  We almost had broiled ferret for dinner!  The only conclusion I
could come up with, because the tray of the broiler was cool (thankfully I
hadn't turned the oven on for dinner yet), was that they located the pilot
and got a little too close.
 
Sigh... Since we don't use the broiler (heck we hardly use the oven :-)) I
grabbed some duct tape and taped it closed so the ferts can't get in there
anymore.  And I thought the kitchen was ferret proof.  Um, yeah, right.
 
===
Aileen & the herd
Slinky, Gizmo, Kyle, Noel, & Sandy
 
"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."
 
"We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act but a
habit."
[Posted in FML issue 2726]