Sally, formally Sally Sasquatch--we never called her that, as it was insulting to talk about her big feet that way--was terminally ill, and miserable, and we had her put to sleep. That marks the end of the ferret period of our history. I'll take the cage and donate it to the local ferret shelter next weekend. It's a nice cage. It was bedroom to several ferrets, though our whole house was their home. They had the run of it only when were awake, though, as they were not to be trusted. Sally was the ferret who liked apples. If I had one in my lunch box, she would struggle with the zipper until she got it open to get her sharp little teeth into it. She couldn't get a good big bite out of an apple, seeing's how she had no incisors--carnivores don't--but she bit it repeatedly to get the flavor. An apple post-Sally wasn't worth much. Also, they were usually under the couch and dessicated by the time I found them. She was the only ferret who unzipped things. We got her and Tazo at about the same time. They were born in September 2003, and we got them in November, when they were about 6 weeks old. We got Sebastian when he was a year and a half old, in January 2004. He'd been neutered a week before, and I don't know if that made him testy or if he still had a lot of his macho or what, but he thought that he should be in charge. He dragged the little girls around for an hour or so. He weighed three pounds then (his former name was Chub) and the girls weighed maybe ten ounces each. Then they conferred and decided to gang up on him. Sally hopped up on the couch, and Tazo stood right beside it in front of Sebastian. When he went after her, Sally jumped off onto his back and grabbed hold of the scruff of his neck, just as he'd been doing to them. She woulnd't let go even though he tried to dance away and shake her off. Tazo did the weasel war dance and we laughed. He knew his place after that. Sebastian was the slipper ferret. He liked everything, but was especially fond of slippers. He liked to swipe them and wrestle them into Gregg's desk drawers. Whan he was old and sick it took him as much as an hour to get one into a drawer, but he resented any kind of assistance. He's buried with my pink ones. Tazo like bottles. I really think she was a tiny boozer at heart, because while she'd take soda bottles, when beer bottles showed up, whe was especially excited. Her bottle stash was behind the entertainment center. She also tipped over glasses that certain parties left sitting out and drank the melted whisky-flavored ice water. I think she was the biggest bandit of them all. One morning when Gregg was running around getting ready for work I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, turned and saw Tazo backing slowly away from his pants with his wallet in her teeth. I will miss them all. They were a lot of fun.  |
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CategoriesAnimalsChristmas Ferrets Flash fiction Games Gardening Holidays NaNoWriMo Poetry Writing |
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