Hi everyone, Yet another lurker makes an appearance. My name is Joe Brzostowski, and my wife, Erika Shugart, and I spend the first bit of our mornings reading all the wonderful postings. Our four-legged friend's name is Tica; she is a 6 month old sable who is the best fuzzy (biased opinion) anyone could ever hope for. She is such a lady. She is always friendly to anyone that she meets, providing gentle ferret kisses as a greeting; she has never bitten hard, but really gets into a good bout of hand to mouth combat; and she loves to curl up in a lap when she is tired, which is always a wonderful treat. Unfortunately, Tica is a thief! Shoes are her favorite and Erika and I WERE the worst when it came to putting up our shoes - not anymore since she demolished the rubber heal of one of my Rockports! (Though it cannot compare to the story of the little one that got to the waterbed!!!). A cute occurrence happened the other day. Tica, as it seems with all ferrets, loves rubber, and on my key chain I have a small light encased with rubber. That morning when Erika and I had to leave we could not locate the keys so we assumed I misplaced them and used her set. Later that evening, after an unsuccessful key search, the three of us were sitting on the sofa and in desperation we asked Tica if she took my keys. She stared at us for a second or two at the edge of the couch, leaped off and made her way to the kitchen. I then turned to Erika and said something like, "I wish she could understand what we were saying." Then we heard the rattle of keys in the kitchen!!! Needless to say we were very surprised. This story would have been better if I could tell you that she proceeded to drag the keys into the livingroom; instead, when I ran into the kitchen I caught her dragging them by the rubber light behind the clothes dryer. When I picked her up with keys dangling from mouth, all she offered was a Vinny Bobberino look, saying with her eyes, "What, what." Just want to say that we love all the stories and all the information. BIG - awesome job!! Our condolences to all of you who had recent losses. p.s. To the person with the "ferret of borg sig," Erika and I are big STNG fans and we died of laughter when we first saw your close...it is a very appropriate description for these critters when they go one neuron and want to reek havoc!! -- Joseph A Brzostowski University of Virginia Department of Biology e-mail [log in to unmask] phone 804-982-5804 [Posted in FML issue 1185]