Extreme Weezils : Chronicles 3

Another Saturday of work was behind me; nine hours of running the pharmacy, alone, as per every weekend shift .... Glad to be home, I was extra thrilled to see all six fuzzies running amok around the house. My husband James had removed the partition separating the ferret room from the kitchen so our Extreme Weezils can play "Free Range Ferts." All six ferrets were so excited to be able to go in and out of the ferret room to the kitchen without having to beg at the doorway to be lifted up and out! Yay, they were living the dream of being Free Range Ferrets!!!

After peeling all six ferrets off me I shuffled into the bedroom to get out of my work clothes and into something comfy. Like usual, I took off each article of clothing and let the ferrets crawl in and out, around and through, etc. each piece on the floor. By the time I had a sundress slipped on my work wardrobe for the day was writhing on the floor below, stuffed with dancing and dooking ferrets! I laughed and sat down on the floor to join in the Ferrety Fun. Bandit was heading down one shirt sleeve to exit via the cuff, as he usually does with my discarded work shirts ... nothing out of the ordinary .... BUT ....

.... This particular white button-down dress shirt still had the sleeves buttoned. I could easily slide my arms in and out of the buttoned cuffs without a problem. I had no idea that Bandit would not be able to do the same. At first I watched Bandit have a hard time getting the first part of his body through the cuff, as he is the chunkiest of our six and sometimes cannot fit through some of the ferret play tubes. As he struggled harder to get out of the buttoned opening, I slowly realized that he had wedged himself in to a point of being stuck, unable to back out or exit through the sleeve! My amusement turned to concern, then quickly changed to panic, fear, and anxiety as Bandit began to thrash around on the floor violently, trying to free himself. As I tried to reach for Bandit to lend a hand, I yelled for James to come quickly. James has an uncanny knack with all the fuzzies and is always a much better rescuer than myself ...

Bandit managed to slip out of my grasp, shirt in tow, under a chair then under the head of the bed. By the time James entered the room, no more than half a minute later, I was in full panic mode while Bandit was literally spinning around and around in an effort to free himself. He was squeezing himself slowly inside the still-buttoned cuff! He was getting squooshed! My Bandito Burrito was hurting and scared, and he may really injure himself! James grabbed Bandit with one hand and unbuttoned the cuff with the other, while I sat there helplessly watching, stunned and scared, tears standing behind my eyes. Bandit was free!

James needed to get to the front room to avert another potential disaster, so I was left alone in the bedroom, on the floor, with my poor Bandit. He was just lying there, looking exhausted and not moving much. I was patting his head and speaking softly to him, telling him how sorry I was for letting him get into that situation, and that I would not let that happen again .... Of course fear, guilt, and self-anger overwhelmed my senses while I tried to calm Bandit. Concerned still, I beckoned James back into the room to take another look at our Bandito Burrito. The next five minutes consisted of James checking Bandit out, lying him on the floor in the ferret room. Bandit was lying flat on his back with all four feet up in the air, head back, fangs skyward, yellow musky cheeks facing the sky .... was he hurt? What had I let happen?

Like a surgeon commanding his team of nurses during an operation, James asked for the Ferretone. One bottle of Ferret Crack, coming up, CHECK! I placed the bottle in James' waiting hand, and bit my lower lip, then turned and left the room unable to speak for fear of sobbing with grief. I was certain that Bandit suffered irreparable damage, or worse ... James called me into the room a moment later, a smile in his voice ... Bandit had his head raised, eyes bright, lapping up Ferretone: He was fine and I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief!

BEWARE OF BUTTONED CUFFS if your ferrets like to play in your dress shirts, like mine do!

Spring is here : the Extreme Weezils get their Summer Coats!

Mom meets her grand-weezils, revisited .... It was the final day of my mom's ten day visit, during which she stayed at her best friend's house the next town over from us. We do not have extra room and she does, so that is the way it has been for every visit. I was nervous and excited about my mom spending a little bit of time with our babies [the ferrets and the kitties] much like a new mother feels when she introduces her child to the grandparents. [read more details below] Several days of nose-wrinkling, coaxing, carrying ferrets around so they did not try to fuzz my mom to death, and generally spending most of the time here saying, "Come on, [ferret name here] get away from Nana Alice! Don't climb up Nana Alice's pants! Stop digging at Nana Alice's shoes! Don't bite the soles! Stop climbing up Nana Alice's pantlegs!"

After much partially subdued looks of distaste interrupted occasionally by helpless smiles at ferrety cuteness, I thought I had her somewhat turned. We went to the local candle store and selected several sample sizes of scented candles. I was hoping I could get the house smelling like something besides a cleaning - solution - smelling ferret. It worked. I know it REALLY worked when my mom hesitantly and with somewhat of a disappointed tone said, "You know, the candles really DID work. I did not think they would, at all, but they DO!"

My Mother Meets The Weezils
My mother visits us about once a year, flying all the way across the country from Boston to Seattle and staying with her best friend in the next town over from us, splitting up her time between friend and daughter [plus husband.] When we were seriously talking about adopting three more ferrets from the shelter, adding to the three we already had, my entire family back east was horrified. How could I possibly even consider such a thing? None of them are real animal people, especially not the kind of people who would find ferrets particularly domestic ....

I was simultaneously nervous and excited for my mom to meet my 'children', the six Extreme Weezils. I thought it was wonderful that she had finally accepted our two cats the last time she was here, and now she was being surrounded by even more fuzzy buddies than I'm sure she had ever imagined! As my mom peered into the ferret cage and ferret room, slowly taking in the vision of six sleeping fuzzies in an indistinct heap, my curiosity grew as to how our babies would react to her face to face. As if reading my thoughts, they all woke from their daytime naps, yawning, stretching, and being deceivingly docile and shy. Each ferret emerged from the open cage door and went their own way, making six directions I had to now keep an eye on.

After quickly placing my purse and my glass of water in a safe place, away from fuzzy hands, I turned my head to the sound of my husband James laughing. All six ferrets were literally at my mom's feet, scratching at, digging at, trying to get into her black tennis shoes. Apparently they all thought my mom's footwear was the most fascinating thing since chasing the cats. It took many tries and two sets of hands to clear the area of shoe-obsessed dookers, disappointing them, horrifying us, and apparently amusing my mother....