Dear Ferret Folks-
 
I think we've all been there at some point.  You've let the ferrets out
to run around the house, but it's time for them to go back now.  Maybe
it's late and you're tired, or you need to get to work.  It would be
really nice to find and scoop up that last ferret but she is....where?
 
You've checked in all the easy places.  Some more than once.  Now you
check all the difficult places.  And there...she..is.  Shhhh!  Don't
startle her, she'll just zip back underneath the sofa (oh no, not the
SOFA) and you'll never catch her.  The sofa.  It's too heavy to move.
You could be standing there with a rubber squeakie in your hand for a
loooong time.  As you do, you can hear, very muffled, the sound of a
sofa being disembowled from the inside.  (Sigh..)
 
You have a choice.  You can either settle in for a long siege, sort of
like what happened in Stalingrad in WW II, and hope she comes out on her
own.  Sure.  It might happen.  But this is Hurricane Lily I'm talking
about.  She really is a force of nature.  How did she ever get a name
like *Lily* anyway?  It wasn't my doing.  Getting to know her as I have,
I'd have settled on something like Catherine the Great, Lucritia Borgia,
the Empress Wu...this is no ORDINARY ferret...this is a miniature
wolverine on prozac.  She just lauuughs and lauuughs at my piddling
attempts to contain her.  "Hee-hee-hee-hee!" It's maddening.
 
As I said, you DO have a choice.  There is my husband's wicked method of
luring a ferret out from beneath the furniture.  All you need is a glass
full of your favourite beverage.  I think that the carbonated ones are
best, because the nasty creature can hear the fizzing.
 
Take the glass and put it on the floor a good two and a half feet from
the edge of the sofa.  Settle back, and watch.  The lure of a full glass,
it's irresistable...to put little paws on the smooth rim and tip it
over..  it's such a delight.  Lily sees the glass from beneath her
upholstered fortress, and she wants it.  Wants it badly.  Badly enough to
come out from under there just a few inches...now just a few more.  She's
sniffing the air.  It's...cola!  Brown!  Bubbling!  Makes such a lovely
puddle on the rug!  Be still now, let the glass sing it's evil siren song
that no weasel can resist...Her whiskered snout barely touches the curved
side of the glass...and..you've..GOT HER!  BWA HA-HA-HA-HA!
 
Back in the ferret room, you cheapo mink wanna-be!
 
Alexandra in Massachusetts
 
Switch the Kit: "But that's how she caught you the LAST time, fool!"
Hurricane Lily: "Hee-hee-hee-hee?"
[Posted in FML issue 3932]