Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The Intrusion of Leo

Well, we had quite the adventure last night!
As I walked in the door, I noticed that Girlchild looked a little shell-shocked.
She was sitting on a chair in the dining room with her feet pulled up around her.
Brian and the Boy were upstairs with Jack, but they came down when they heard me come home.
I asked Girlchild how she was doing, and she replied,
"Well, I just saw an amee-al (that's how she pronounces "animal") that was all white and not a kitty.
It's in our house."

I was only half-paying attention because I was busy unloading the groceries to make dinner
{bad mama, not paying attention!}, but asked her what she meant.
She has a vivid imagination ~ that's my excuse for not taking her seriously at first.
Fortunately, Brian had come down by then and heard her describing where she had seen it.
I finally clued in that she really had seen an animal in our house.
I asked her if it was a mouse.

"No, it was too big to be a mouse."
She held up her hands and showed us the size of a large rat.

"How big was the tail?" I asked.
She indicated a bit longer tail.
Brian and I looked at each other and both silently mouthed, "Oh shit. A rat!"
I sighed and went upstairs to change out of my work clothes.
I can't deal with a giant rat in 4" heels.

I walked into my bedroom, pulling off clothes as I did.
I heard a little scurry and scratch...
and a ferret ran across the floor in front of me, and dove under my bed.

I screamed... because you know, vicious ferret... slammed the door and found myself standing in the hallway, half naked.

"BRIIIIIIAAAAAAAN! IT'S A FERRET!"

He fortunately remembered seeing a poster in the neighborhood for a missing ferret,
so he went to find it and call them. We figured they would be able to catch it.
I certainly had no intention of trying to catch it!

But wait... I realized that strangers were coming to my bedroom to catch up their ferret,
and I wasn't wearing clothes. I'd have to go back in and face the rodent.
I quickly found jammies (not my first choice for meeting people, but this was hardly a social visit, so whatever).
Just then the Boy came in, wanting to see the parrot.

"No, honey, it's not a parrot. It's a ferret."
"Where is the pare... fare... ferret?" He asked, "I want to see it." My brave little guy.

We looked under the bed, and there it was. It saw us peering under the bed skirt, and came running at us. Boy said, "Wow!" just as the ferret jumped in my lap. I didn't even have time to react, because Just Jack the wonder puppy came in. I didn't want Jack to have a new chew toy at that moment, so I grabbed up the ferret and we all went downstairs just as Brian came back home.
That little ferret was so snuggly! I put him in a cat carrier to keep him from running away or running in to Jack or a kitty. Less than 2 minutes later, the owners showed up, so incredibly relieved.
Actually, they were a little distressed to see him in the cat carrier. The woman gasped,
"OH NO! He's in a cage?!?"
I was a little taken aback ~ it's just a cat carrier ~ and explained that I didn't want the puppy to get him. She says, "Oh, he's fine with dogs. We have two dogs at our house."
Lady, I'm not worried about what your little ferret will do to my dog. I didn't want my overly exuberant puppy to "remove the squeaker," so to speak.
Anyway, they were very grateful to get him back. Apparently, one of their daughters was so distraught over "Leo" being gone that she hadn't been able to go to school and had burst blood vessels all around her eyes from crying so hard. Poor little thing.
Brian asked them how long Leo had been missing, because he had seen the "Missing" posters before Christmas.
"This is his third time escaping," they explained. 
Hmmm. Maybe you should consider some sort of containment device...

Oh, and in other news... perhaps it's time for me to cut the Boy's hair. The woman complimented him on his pretty hair, saying she was trying to convince her daughter to get the same haircut.
In her defense, he was wearing pink Hello Kitty slippers.
The boy and his pretty hair.

4 comments:

  1. Hi there!
    Just stopping by via Disneysmmoms.
    This post is hilarious.. and crazy..
    I can't believe the owners reaction.. people can be very strange at times..

    Looking forward to following along with your blog..

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  2. Thanks! We had quite a laugh about the whole situation. We still can't quite figure out how the puppy allowed this little creature to roam freely about our house... but I guess his lack of guard dog skills paid off in this instance! :)
    Thanks for following along ~ I'll jump over to visit you as well!

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  3. oh my gosh... what a story!!! at least it was a "house" pet and not a rat!! and the owners... geesh, if it escaped 3 times, you might want to figure something out!!

    stopping by from my blog, Work, Wife, Mom... Life! and the working mommy network!

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  4. I love both your blogs! Thanks for stopping by, ladies!

    ReplyDelete