My best problem-solving story: One day I found Sam and Frankie playing with something I didn't think they should have. I don't remember now what it was, but I took it away from them and put it on the kitchen counter. I was still in the kichen, starting dinner. Frankie, not to be deterred, started climbing one of the empty cardboard boxes destined for recycling. I laughed at his determination. He gained altitude, but the box was too far from the counter. So Frankie got down, pushed the box up against the kitchen counter and climbed it again! He still couldn't reach, though. So Frankie got down again, went back to the pile of boxes, and started shoving another one towards the counter! My amusement turned to amazement. I don't know what Frankie had in mind; he would have had to stack the two boxes to get to the counter, which I'm pretty sure was beyond his dexterity. Though you never know. But meanwhile, as I'm watching Frankie, Sam has been playing with another toy, which he drops between my feet, and backs away, with a 'play with me' look. Who could resist? So I get down on one knee, as I usually do to pick something up off the floor - and Sam makes a sudden end run. He dashes behind me, runs up my back, jumps onto the counter, grabs the forbidden item, leaps off onto the conveniently placed box, and dashes away with the item to the safety of the couch. Frankie runs after him. Ferrets 1 Humans 0. I could never decide who was smarter -- Frankie with his engineering aspirations, or Sam with his misdirection. (Or, is there even a remote possibility that they colluded? That was an awfully tall counter to jump from without a conveniently-placed box to land on.) And all this from walnut-sized brains... Claire fondly remembering Sam the Great White Weasel and Lord Franklin the Explorer... [Posted in FML 7058]