When Pork Lo Mein puts on his winter fat, his resemblance to a beanbag is striking. His sister Beezer will actually sit on him wih no more though than we woud sit on a chair. All that ferret fat must make for comfortable lounging. When it's cage time, we'll pull him out of the underwear drawer, and he feels just like a beanbag, too, so we have started calling them beanbags. Another story: My freind is an incorrigible joker with a warped sense of humor. He is a foster parent for a 10 yr old child. They were helping me move when the boy asked if he could pet our ferrets, although he didn't call them ferrets, he just said " Can I pet your things?" because he didn't know what they were but was too cool to ask. They were sleeping and I really didn't want them disturbed, but he asked me 5 or 6 times. My buddy, sensing my irritation, said " Actually that's not a good idea. Those are African Death Weasels and they will spray you with venom if you wake them up" The boy sat mesmerized as my friend made up the greatest stories of how they can take down lions in the wild and how natives use them to rid their huts of cobras and unwanted family members. After that, of course, I told him what they really were and let him play with them after they were awake. After pestering his Dad for about a year, he got his own African Death Weasel. Speaking of euphemisms and ncknames, how many of you have about 10 nicknames for your ferret? These are ours: Buster: Pork Lo Mein, Fattus, Mr. Man, Mr. Love chunks(?), Fat Boy, Monkey, The Boy Prince, Hamhead, James Brown Jiggs: Beezer, the Wee Beezer, Princess, Spazoleum, Weaseltoes,Jiggityjoo, Queen Beez, Bad girl (when peeing on the carpet) Kelly, Teri, and the Mustelids of Love Buster: The hairy one with the laptop smells like fermented grapes tonight Jiggs: Yeah, well, the one who sits down to pee won't let me out of the cage just because I wanted to help her repot her fern. [Posted in FML issue 1389]