My Year of Meaningful (2011)

This is the ferret I've been taking care of for a couple of weeks now.

We were driving home from dancing class on a cold and rainy thursday night, along busy busy Wilton Road, when I thought I saw a small cat or something racing down the footpath. Then on second thought something triggered in my mind that made me think "that cat is rather shaped like a ferret". So I thought I'd crane my neck around and look again, knowing that it would be absurd for a small domestic ferret to be running down Wilton Road at 10pm. And it was. So I yelled at H. to PULL OVER ITS A FERRET OMG HE'S GONNA GET HIT BY A CAR!! and being the true saint that my baby is, he screeched on the breaks post-haste and nearly slammed us into a very high curb.

I ran over to the little guy who was now trying to eat a cigarette butt, scooped him up, looked around to see if anyone was going to say anything, and jumped back into the car. Poor H. didn't even know what a ferret IS, so that makes the fact that he was willing to total the car over saving one, even more sweet, I think.

We agreed that we'd make posters and put ads in the paper and try to locate this little monster's mommy or daddy, and look after him for awhile until something happened. I had a ferret when I was a kid, so I didn't mind caring for him for awhile, but they're quite stinky and a bit high-maintenence, so I knew it would be a brief while.

Sooo anyway, we named him Frankie Furter and made up one of the transport containers that we brought Reggie over from Australia in, for him, I cook him chicken every day and we buy high-end cat food that costs 5 times as much as the puppies' nibbles... but oh well, he's lovely. He's litter trained and sleeps nearly all the time. He is also best friends with Reilly and every night they play and play and bounce around together and he loves to cuddle up underneath her belly. He loves to follow us around the house and tunnel into the laundry basket. He's just very stinky and that sucks, considering people already think our house smells like dog. Ferrets are like, WAY worse.

So far no phone calls, even though we hung up loads of posters around Wilton Rd. and in all the shopping areas near there, I put an ad in the lost and found on the animal website, and in the paper. I phoned around to all the vets and had them contact their (very few) ferret owner clients to see if any were missing their pet... actually, a few were, but none of them were Frankie. So now we need to find him a good forever-home. One guy who's girl ferret went missing 3 months ago expressed interest in maybe taking him, if we cant find his parents. So I guess I'll call him.

We're going to miss Frankie Furter but his makeshift cage isn't ideal for a long-term ferret house, and we'll never manage to get him to Botswana. Plus, well, we're just dog people. But I love Frankie and I'm going to find him a good home. Oh Mr. Furter, we love you.