RE: Kelly's claim of ferret attempts at communication I have one really weird story to tell and you guys are the only ones I can trust not to laugh TOO hard at me... Last year I was living in a large, two-story, three-bedroom apartment in an old Victorian house, with two other girls and two cats, two gerbils, and a Rottweiler, as well as my ferret, Mr. Fuzz. Since this was such an old house, and had not originally been designed as apartments, the adaptation process had left it with lots of nooks, crannies, hidey-holes, and closets-- the diametric opposition to "ferret-proof." I normally kept Fuzz in my bedroom, but would let him out for a few hours of supervised play at night. If he got away from me (which invariably he did,) he would generally hide out in the same two or three basic locations, from which I would then have to extract him. One night, however, I was on the phone for longer than I expected, and Fuzz vanished. I checked the normal places. I checked the abnormal places. I even checked his cage (fat chance, but I was grasping at straws here.) Both roommates helped me tear the house apart, but I couldn't find him anywhere. I was in tears by 2 a.m. when I finally went to bed, convinced that he had somehow gotten into the duct system or outside, cursing myself for my carelessness, and mourning the apparent loss of my dear little friend. A few hours later, I awoke suddenly from a sound sleep, sat straight up in bed, and said, aloud, "He's in a box in the storage closet." I walked directly to the closet, grabbed a large cardboard box with the flaps folded together, inserted my arm, and pulled out Fuzz! I took him back to bed with me and didn't realize how odd the whole thing was until the next morning, when my roommates wanted to know where on earth he'd been. He had never hidden there before, and with the flaps closed I couldn't see him. But somehow I knew that's where he was. Since then, he hasn't disappeared on me, and he hasn't done any neat psychic tricks either (he's more likely to steal spoons than bend them.) Still, I have to wonder... maybe he and I can get our own 900-number. [Posted in FML issue 1374]