It so happened, one day, that three otherwise rational humans were walking along a wide and beautiful beach. One was a cat fancier, another was a dog person and the third was a lover of ferrets. As they strolled together in the afternoon sun, they each spied an ancient bottle as it was thrust upon the shore by the restless sea. After much tussling and the ungainly tangling of many sets of limbs, they each managed to grasp the bottle at the same time. As they struggled with each other over sole possession of the treasued bottle, a genie popped out of it and stood towering over them. "Well now," the genie said. "We seem to have a little problem here. I can only grant three wishes, so I suppose I'll have to give one wish to each of you." After considerable thought, which caused him great pain, the dog person spoke up. "Mr. Genie, Sir," he said, "For my wish, I wish that all the dogs and dog people in the world could all go to one country, where we won't have to put up with these snooty cat and ferret people." "Granted." the genie said. POOF. The dog person disappeared. The cat person thought for several moments before she made her wish. She knew what she wanted but was careful to state it in dignified terms. "Well, now. Since the dog lovers have their own country now, I think it should be perfectly obvious that we cat lovers, and our cats, should have a few countries of our own." POOF. The cat lady vanished. This left only the ferret guy, standing on the beach, gawking at the genie. He was from Georgia, by the way, and no one had ever accused him of being a rocket scientist. He was, however, owned and loved by two ferrets and had learned a great deal from them. "Let me get this straight," he drawled. "Those dog people and their critters now have their own country and it ain't around here?" "Correct," the genie replied. "And them high falootin' cat folks and their crtitters got their own place too and it ain't nowhere around here either?" "That is also correct." The genie was beginning to become a little impatient. "Well, heck," the ferret guy said, "In that case I guess I'll just have me a Diet Coke." SORRY - just couldn't resist. Joy to the World! Long live the FLO! Paw Paw (;;-{)}~~ [Posted in FML issue 1495]