Q: "What is it like living in your house with 20 ferrets?" A: I don't live....I survive.... Here is a typical day: 6 o'clock. Woke up and noticed the sun is in the west rather than the east. Must be early evening. Staggered to the bathroom and noticed one side of my face was lopsided. Thank God I was normal in all respects. 6:30 pm. Cleaned up the poopie boxes, the areas around the poopie boxes, and the areas away from the poopie boxies, as well as a few other places. Noticed a poopie near my chair that was very similar to the Chinese character for "Give Raisins or Die." Still trying to figure out how the ferrets can poopie under the door and get it on the other side. 7:OO pm. Willingly gave my breakfast to my ferrets rather than "disappear." I gave them all the nickels in my pockets as well. Bullies. 7:30 pm. Pulled out the pooter keyboard and realize several keys are missing. I replaced them with old erasers. However, I now know what the light tan objects in several poopies were. 8:00 pm. Ignoring the intense pain around my ankles and feet as my socks were being dragged off, I finally logged in to the MU server. Today was a good day....it was running at 1000 bytes a minute with unintentional hangups only every few minutes. Had to stop twice and retrieve the mouse from Carbone. Then I had to retrieve my hand from Carbone. 8:30 pm. Called the pharmacy for more bandaids and ointment. Tui decided blue jeans were a transport to raisin heaven and the legs inside were in his way. Applied more ointment and bandaids. 9:00 pm. Watched Tui and Carbone wrestle each other for the 8,930th time that day. So far. Then watched Moose climb the stool, leap onto the folding chair, climb the back, then launch himself towards the spinning blades of the ceiling fan. Just barely missed it by several feet. If he made it, I might have said, just made it but missing several feet. He fell in slow motion and I could see his tail spinning to slow himself down. I told him what a silly ferret he was, so he bit me on the nose. I was grateful, and wondered if a silver or gold replacement would look best. 10:00 pm. Retrieved my toes from a hidey hole and put them on ice for future reattachment. 11:00 pm. Attempted for the 17th time to finish a chapter of a book I am working on. Tore up the pages and tossed them in the air. Thats hard to do when you use a computer program to write stuff. The ferrets chased the ether pages all around the room. Tui tried to reach the raisins again. Applied more ointment and bandaids. 1:30 am. All the ferrets are asleep, so I sneaked into the closet to get some references. I looked down to see 20 ferrets climbing in boxes of references waiting to be filed away. Ballistic poopied on a copy of a Russian paper on ferret-polecat hybrids. It was a cryllic message. 4:00 am. Finally got all the ferrets out of the closet and closed the door. Then I went back in to get the three I missed. Then I went back in to get the four that snuck in while I was getting the three. Then I went back in to get the reference I forgot. 6:00 am. Noticed the rising sun was the same color as the blood on my socks. Realized my ferrets were staring at me. Intently. Little eyes boring holes into the back of my head like lasers from the Lost In Space robot. So I filled the food dish. Put ointment and bandaids on the laser holes. Wondered if the hospital could recycle my lost blood back into me. 7:00 am. Finally finished three sentences of the chapter I was working on. Noticed all the ferrets were sleeping, so I snuck over to the bathroom door, but stepping on a rug mine set off the escape alarm and 20 ferrets met me at the door. It was an ugly crowd, out for Bob. I tossed all the raisins I had into the air, and ran as fast as I could through the sea of slashing teeth and poofing bottoms. I reached the door, ran through and closed it behind me. Then opened it again to get rid of the four ferrets clinging from various parts of my body. Then I opened it again to get rid of the ferrets that creeped in while I was getting rid of the four. 8:00 am. Finally got all the ferrets back in their room. Collapsed from lack of blood and nourishment on the futon. Watched a minute of classic Star Trek before passing out in an anemic haze. 9:00 am. Tossed a grown cow into the ferret room, and slamed the door so as not to hear the cries of the doomed beast. All I heard was a surprized moo, a tipping sound, then crunching. <shiver> 10:00 am. Ran through the piles of marrow-cracked cow bones to the pooter so I could read the FML. Sadly, not a single post on how to eliminate my ferret infestation. Just thinking it brought out the laser eyes on the back of my neck. I passed out from the intense pain. As I blacked out, I saw a ferret coming over holding a small black box sprouting the type of thin wires they stick into brains....looked sort of like one of the rats from NIHM....all turns black...... 6:00 pm. What a nice day. Gave the ferrets a whole bag of raisins for breakfast, and couldn't resist adding my calling card to the corner pile. I sat down and made a list of things I could do to improve ferret lives and posted them to the FML. What sweet, innocent creatures! How could anyone not love them? I showered and noticed it was hard to comb my hair through some sort of boxlike device. Oh well. Now, what can I do for the ferts today?....maybe buy some goldfish, hamsters and small birds... Bob C and 20 MO Remote Controllers [Posted in FML issue 2345]