Before my first ferret came to live with me, I saw a ferret in a dream--only, I didn't know what kind of animal it was. I thought it was a woodchuck. In the dream, it was in my Memphis apartment, trying to climb up on my green plaid couch. All of a sudden, it stuck its neck out really fast, like a snake, which startled me and woke me up. I wondered, "Why would a funny woodchuck be climbing up my couch?" Soon after that, I was unpacking a shipment of new books delivered to the library and recognized my animal--it was on the cover of a book about ferrets. "Ah, so that was a ferret!" I thought. "But still--why would a ferret be climbing up my couch?" In the following few months, I ran into ferrets a couple of times--once at the Lichterman Nature Center (a program on predators where they let us pet a ferret and explained that it was not a wild animal, but an abandoned pet). Once at the Society for Creative Anachronism Pennsic get-together in Pennsylvania. I started reading up on them and became intrigued. . .and that was no secret, at the library where I worked, a branch where everybody knew everybody and everybody's "business." One day, my co-worker told me that she found a ferret -- or rather, the ferret found her -- when she was in the drive-thru at Burger King. She looked out the window, saw her and told her son, "That's not a squirrel!" and went over to check it out. The lost little ferret ran right up to her and "begged" her for rescue, so of course she took her home and put her on their back porch. But with 5 kids, dogs, and cats, Ann figured that a) she really couldn't take on a ferret and b) she thought that I might want to have a new little friend. She called me and I met her at the library and picked up the cardboard kitty carrier with the ferret inside. Delighted and a little anxious (as any new adoptive "parent" would be!) I put her in the car and asked her, "What is your name?" I turned on the radio and they were playing a song about "Shasta," and I said, "Are you 'Shasta?'" and she "agreed" to that--although her "real" name was actually some kind of musical note that couldn't be written in English, as she "told" me later. I kept looking and looking for notices of lost sable female ferrets, even once, trying to be ethical but hoping for the best, driving her some distance to a woman who took one look and said, "Oh, that's not my ferret--but she's lovely! You should keep her!" And so--I did, for by that time I had fallen in love. And "the rest is history," as the saying goes! Kate (currently-owned by "Michaela," a.k.a "Mickey," who is a sweet-and-spunky tiny champagne-colored ferret princess missing her late brother "George," a.k.a. "Zorro," who was a dark-and-dashing handsome sable ferret prince) "May all your ferret tales end 'happily ever after.'" [Posted in FML 8173]