Dear Ferret Folks- Ping is He *snubbed* the corner pan that I tuck between the grandfather clock and the sideboard this evening. Why? Was it overflowing with ferret turds? No. It had *one* ferret turd in it, so he decided not to use it. (In point of fact, I suspect that it was his own personal turd, but I digress...) He looked at the pan, and I could see from his body language that it didn't meet his personal hygiene standards. By that I mean that he decided to crap on the floor in front of it. Now, this may seem completely reasonable to small domesticated members of the mustelid family, but it just...tasks me. Does anyone remember the" Wrath of Kahn" Star Trek movie from the eighties? I remember Ricardo Montalban as Kahn sitting in the Capitain's chair of a starship and trying to channel dialouge from Moby Dick. (He did this mostly with dramatic use of heavy eye-liner as I remember.) He hitched a deep breath and said of Capitain Kirk "He *tasks* me!" OK. I get it. Well here's my annalouge. Ping is He crapping in front of the litter pan? It *tasks* me. Knowing the hopelessness of the act but driven to intervene (*amn, *amn, *amn ferret!) I ran, seemingly in slow motion to the pan and the offending weasel. Time slowed to a crawl. I might have moaned aloud "Noooo!" Given the temporal distortion it probably sounded like the wet gurgle of methane in a cow's belly. By the time I caught up to him of course, Ping had lifted his tail and set his back feet like a pitcher. I snatched him up and tossed him underhand into the pan. You know, of course, what this meant. A long, fluted ribbon of turd across six inches of my floor, terminating at the edge of the pan. It was the sort of reason why I don't eat that spray cheese from the can stuff. The resemblance is eerie. And now I had to clean it up. Ping just gave me this bewildered look, as if to say "What is WRONG with you? I was crapping. Do you mind?" Yes, I mind. That's why I put down CORNER PANS. *amn, *amn, *amn ferret! Alexandra in Ma [Posted in FML 6010]