Just wanted to thank everyone for all the wonderful ideas and suggestions
over the past couple of days.  Both Pandora and Flower seem to be fine
after their respective ordeals, although a bit fidgety since neither was
allowed out to play last night-- I haven't got the most likely escape
routes out of the house cordoned off yet.  However, I got a couple of
suggestions I will be following this weekend for that problem.  The
temporary fix is going to be tall cardboard folded in a 'v' and placed
between appliances, then taped in place.  That should hold 'em until at
least Saturday.  And, I'm going to go looking for some clear lucite-type
stuff that can be trimmed to size to put in the 'doorways' to the kitchen;
I'm planning on using hook-n-eyes at top and bottom on each side to put
them in place, fastened on the inside of the kitchen where they can't get
their grubby little paws in to unhook 'em!  Then these "gates" can be
stored when not in use.  I owe both these ideas to kind FML'ers who
e-mailed me about them.
 
Re: the "house leech", as one person called him (I snickered quite a bit
over that one!): two things are working in me & the ferts favor right now.
One is, he's gotten some temporary work and is out of the house during the
day (boy I hope that lasts more than a week!), and the other is that I put
a sign on the ferrets cage asking that they NOT be let out of their cages
when I am not there, or without my permission.  That's kind of a wimpy way
to go about it, but I can't help it, I've just always hated verbal
confrontations and for me, putting things in writing has always seemed to
do the trick!
 
Thanks again for all the wonderful suggestions.
 
Vickie & Pandora ("I'm ready to go again, Mom!!!") & Flower (who didn't
appear to miss her 'sister' at all during her absence-- just gave her more
room to wrestle with Tanker) & Tank (who is just sooooooo gorgeous lately,
with all his sparkly white fur and big robust body and little black tail
tip like an ermine) & Moogie (unfortunately as homely as ever, but
superdedooper loving) & Diva (who seems to be getting a lot of golden
hairs in her sable fur; looks almost gilded lately).
[Posted in FML issue 2563]