Dear Ferret Folks- While excavaring my living room today I discovered a previously undetected ferret stash between the arm of the living room sofa and the wall. It is a very small area, but what a remarkable and varied array of items was revealed by a five minute archaeological inventory of the hoard! Switch and Sabrina have been busy. 1)Two pens. One ballpoint, one felt tip. Now I know why there are no pens next to the phone in there, anymore. 2)A flyer for 'New England Tech.' Come take night classes. An issue of 'Outdoor Life' magazine that I most assuredly never got to see. So which of the ladies wants night classes, and which wants to go camping? 3)A business card from Sandy Boudreau, Human Resources Manager for Hudson-RPM Distributors, LLC. My husband works for them, but why do ferrets collect business cards? From a HUMAN resource specailist, of all things? Maybe I should give her a call. "Hi. You don't know me, but my ferret has your business card." 4)The fuzzy felt pad from the underside of a chair leg, designed to keep the legs from scraping the floor. Now I have to check all of my kitchen chairs. However did they wrestle THAT from beneath a chair sitting on the floor? I never leave my chairs any way but sitting on all four legs. For what concievable purpose was this item selected? 5)Five 'Popcorn-Flavor' rice cakes. Well, they do like styrofoam and starch packing peanuts, these are more or less diet starch peanut patties for people. I note that they are conspicuously uneaten. 6)A bag of 'Whoppers' malted milk balls, emptied of it's contents. They do beat the heck out of rice cakes. 7)An empty carton of Ben & Jerry's and TWO spoons. Hmmm. Two ferrets, two spoons.... 8)Eleven cents. Saving up for more Ben & Jerry's? 9)A spark plug wire. Where the *hell* did that come from? The other day I read an article about a previously unsiscovered hoard of ancient coins in Britian. A social scientist was trying to say that the coins told us various things about the people that collected and buried them. Or DID they? Hmmmm....I bet they were shiny, once...Perhaps they were stashed by late medieval ferrets! How much of the archaeological record needs to be re-written? Alexandra in Massachusetts Switch the Kit: "Heh! They'll never find Jimmy Hoffa!" Sabrina the Bat-Biter: "Or his socks!" [Posted in FML issue 3770]