I could hardly sleep last night, and that was at least 13 hours after Jake gave us a terrible fright. Eric left the laundry room door open (again!) without checking to see if one of the cage doors in the adjoining Ferrets' Wreck Room had been opened to let the fuzzies come and go. When I went downstairs a couple hours later, I immediately knew what the empty cage and open door meant ... five weasels in the laundry - a room with shelves to climb, boxes to hide in, tools to steal, a real dryer hose to unfasten from the dryer and escape through .... I was calling their names and searching the room in a second. No answer. Probably asleep (please, God). Ran upstairs for the squeeky toy. Squeeked and called, and sure enough, one weasel appeared. Grab - Hug - Lock in cage. Checking the space behind the dusty Nordic Trac and the old mattress off the sofa bed we trashed to keep the weasels safe, I saw another naughty weasel emerge from a bag of fabric I'd used for costumes 4 years ago. I hauled that bag out in none too ceremonious a manner and found two more. Four ferrets accounted for ... but where was Jake? Squeek squeek squeek JAKE! ... squeek squeek squeek JAKE! I was beginning to panic. The room isn't that large, and there isn't all *that* much accumulated junk in there. I ran upstairs to enlist Rebecca's aid and yell at Eric. While Rebecca searched the room again, I circled the outside of the house. I couldn't be too sure that there was no possible exit from the laundry. Only people who have lost a little guy know how very huge and hopelessly full of hiding places your neighborhood can look all of a sudden. It seemed that my street tripled in length as I gazed down it. I was thankful I had trained him to come to the squeeky toy, but I wondered if he could hear it outdoors if he were sleeping somewhere. I rejoined the search in the laundry, and insisted we move some piled boxes. "Don't bother. We'd hear him scratching if he were down there," said Eric. "Not if his head was caught and he was suffocating!!!!" I kept moving boxes. I glanced into one long box that Eric's golf clubs came in, but it was empty. Suddenly I thought I heard scratching in the vent above me. I made Eric and Rebecca stop to listen. Then I thought I heard a scratching behind the boxes. "I hear it!" cried Rebecca. We listened. I heard nothing. Then Rebecca grabbed that long box and tilted it toward her ... and we all heard the scrabbling of ferret toenails! The box is only 6"x6" square and too long to see the bottom easily, which is why I'd missed seeing Jake in there. Boy, did we shower that fuzzy with raisins and kisses!!! The scary part to me was that he was there all along and couldn't let us know. When we first got ferrets, Sabine was missing for half an hour while we searched high and low. Rebecca found her in the bathtub, looking up so intently from the bathmat she had climbed up and which had fallen in after her. I'm sure she heard us calling all that time, but she couldn't let us know where she was. I wish they could use that horrible noise they make if you step on their toes when they are in other types of distress. That squeeky toy was good for the four guys who could come to me, but not for the one that was stuck in the bottom of the box. Rebecca and I agreed hours later that we still felt drained by the emotion we had felt. I went to bed two hours early, but for an hour every time I'd begin to doze off I'd start to have a dream about losing a ferret. For the rest of the night I was awakened on and off with dreams about the ferrets. They shifted from losing ferrets to Kermit having an obstruction (which I have also been worrying about). I was finally wakened once and for all this morning by a dream about Oreo the cat vomiting all over because of some massive hairball. I had no idea I was so terrified of losing Jake until I had all these letdown reactions. I can't forget the immensity of the task of looking for him out in the world, or even in every conceivable nook and cranny in just one room. And I still am so very glad he's okay! [Posted in FML issue 2052]