How is it that Bob inspires such silliness in me? I think it's that he really is a ferret at heart! >By the way, Lynn. That's "Bob the fert-sniffin' man" if you don't mind. >At least you didn't tell how I checked all the available baculas.... Bob, you are absolutely right! "Big Bad Ferret Man Bob", bears the words *Big Bad Ferret...*, which even in your ferret-imitatin' case, could never be true! If you'd like to be known for "fert sniffin", I'll be the first to agree! Oooohhhh, Bob (voice rising like a kite, then dropping like a boulder into a well). Why, oh why, did you remind me about the baculas?!... my fingers quivered to spill the bacula info in my first message and I resisted it... now you've gone and done it! Here goes. Bob greets every new ferret fondly, with exhortations of love, then proceeds to age the little critter. Gazing at the teeth, feeling the spleen and, finally, feeling the bacula! "Bob," I asked, "can you really tell anything from the BACULA (for those that don't know, the bacula is a really strange looking thing bone, that, if it ever emerges, will scare the pants of you -- hooked, spikey, long, curved - Bob could describe it better as I've only seen one). Luckily it's mostly tucked neatly away inside the fur...the end of it is the tiny, pink little penis we associate with males -- the reason my poor guys never get kisses on the tummies. ANYWAY, "Bob," I asked, "how can you tell anything from feeling that?!" "Lynn," he answered patiently, "in ferrets it gets bigger as they age". I must have gazed at him with questions in my eyes, because, "This is not the case in men," he volunteered sheepishly. OH BOB, I already KNEW that! So, that's the bacula tale. After aging the ferrets, Bob looked at me and asked, "So, Lynn, how old are you?" "You are not looking at my teeth or any such thing, BOB," I answered. "I'll bet I could guess how old you are, " he persisted. (Boy, does that guy have something to learn about women!). "Bob," I answered with the patience of a tired Amazon warrior, "Go ask my husband how old HE is..." So off he waddled in his too-tight-fittin' jeans (remember the Seinfeld episode where Kramer walks about like Frankenstein because his jeans are so very tight?) to my husband's shop. Men will be men. Well, if Bob is spendin' time in Victoria into next week, and spending a week in Seattle after that, the Bob "do" in West Seattle may happen next weekend. Any preferences for Saturday or Sunday? If so, send them along. A weekend thingy would be good in general because at least one person from the Oregon Ferret Association is interested in coming, someone said they might be interested in coming over from Montana, and a Californian has indicated he might fly up if it's on a weekend. I'm hoping such Seattle noteables such as the widely controversial but loved-by-locals for-and- despite-his-foibles Ed Lipinski (of Ferrets Northwest), as well as my ferret-lovin' fert-mom vet Cathy Johnson-Delaney, DVM, who is currently completing a long, much referenced paper on, among other things, adrenal disease in our fuzzies! It should be a low key, intimate do, focused on the love of fuzzies. Come watch Bob act like a ferret! Oops, I mean, a fert sniffin' guy, and meet some other fert-lovin' locals in the bargain. Hope it all works out and I see some of you there, Ferret McIntosh, I mean Lynn! and the seven leapin' fuzzy lizards P.S. Sorry about the subject line; it should have read, "Bob's Bacula Tale"... maybe that's one for the typo museum! FLM [Posted in FML issue 2268]