For a brief second I was able to relish a full night's sleep. A very brief second. Or was it a nano-second? Then the reality of my life began to overtake me almost as fast as the rush of pain from a headache. The shaking and persistent clanging of a tiny bell by a parrotlet could be heard right along side the constant chattering and yapping of it's budgie friends from the next room. The other sounds from the "zoo" seemed to amply after that. The once peaceful sounds of aquariums bubbling, the cockatiel bellowing out the Moody Blues, the scratching of nails on the glass doors in the kitchen from an impatient tree squirrel awaiting his daily share of nuts, and now the sound of loud clamoring coming from a cage where a goofy, Goffins cockatoo does loopty-loops in it's cage like "spider-bird". My head. Owe, owe, owe. I pop a couple of headache pills and I try pulling a pillow over my head. It does no good. I then pull two more and smash them over my head with my arm. And I lay there for a few minutes. Ah, sounds are dulled, but not for long. The cockatoo is now letting out demanding screams that are no less awful sounding than Mothra in an old Godzilla movie. They can wait. But then, it is the imagined sounds that fill my head from the ferret room downstairs that overtake me. I can "hear" Zee biting and clawing at the cage door to get out and play. I can vividly see the tiny DMK gurlz, probing, pushing and shaking cage doors on an intense mission to get out. DMK kids lived their lives trying to problem solve their way out of tiny, rusted cages outside at the farm where they could see dirt, grass and puddles, but had never once in their lives touched them. The guilt of rescues is a horrible thing for me. Their stories haunt me. And that is why I only take 1-2 at a time. Then the last straw hits. Pharos's nose deep in the dirty liter while speedily digging in anger. I can see the poop and pine pellets flying all over the cage ... the room. That's it! I can ignore the barrage of sounds from the animals ... but not my imagination of what is going on in the ferret room. Just as I'm about to get up. Another flood of thoughts hits me. The vision of Critter Camp in Illinois. Every morning of her life, Beth Randall is awakened by crabbing sugar gliders, an Amazon parrot yelling, "hello", the constant pacing of an artic fox, screeching from a quaker, the digging by Degus, and much, much more that must make a night in the rainforest seem quiet. But I know what really must get her up. The sounds of dozens of tiny little nails clicking about and the rattle of bells in toy balls. The thoughts of dancing, grateful ferrets starting their day with a great party. And also the piles of poop they are working on. The impossibility of her day ahead just plain does not compute in my brain. I'm laying here dreaming of the day where I wake up and all I have to dred in my morning is brushing my teeth and wiping my butt. It could happen. It did for a brief couple of years in college. But it will never happen for Beth. The baffling and also incomprehensible thought then hits. She is "happy" about it. How do I know this? I just came back from a brief visit of her exotic pet rescue. Let me begin by explaining the visit came to be. [Posted in FML 6501]