Having a bad day...

[Lazy-Ferret]

We have a young Albino boy ferret, called Topic, who is a bit special... He will see you walking down the hall, run towards you, and just take a flying leap at you, trying to wrap his paws round your leg... only trouble is, he does not take into account you are moving. So this often results in us feeling very guilty as he ends up hitting our knee if we do not see him, or landing on our heel if we are walking away from him.

The other night, as I got out of the bath and pulled the plug, he literally jumped in, had a swim round until enough water had run away and it was shallow enough for him to touch the bottom, and then set to snorkelling up and down the bath, covering himself in the bubbles... So much for me saying we never bath our ferrets... well I guess it still stands, they now just do it their selves.

Another thing is, he likes to get behind things, and move them, by pushing his back against the wall and his feet against the object. He moves the usual things, like litter trays, and toy boxes, plus other bits, like the bins in the kitchen, and my tool box if it is in his way. We have a drop in gate, made of chip board, so we can segregate the groups at play time, by slotting it in the door way. When it is not in use, it leans against the wall, and he loves to knock it over when it is just leant against the wall. This makes a huge bang, and always scares the life out of us, and the other ferrets.

Now, to the point... We are doing some DIY, re-decorating our bedroom, and fitting sliding wardrobes. After a lot of searching and waiting, we managed to win exactly what we needed off of Ebay. This meant I had to drive 40miles and load five 8'x2'6" heavy glass mirror doors onto the roof of my car. My car is 7' high, before you put the roof rack on, so getting 5 doors onto it is no mean feat. I then drive 40 miles back home, hoping not to break them. I finally got home, and then spent the next hour carefully getting them off the roof one at a time, as that was all I could lift, due to their weight, and moved each one up the stairs. I decided to stand them at the top of the stairs, as this was out the way, but ready for me to fit them the next day. Once I had all 5 upstairs, I wrapped a strap round them, so they were all locked together and checked they were safe. As I could not lift them away from the wall, I decided they were fine.

We then sat down for tea.

Some time later there was the biggest bang, crash and smash you have ever heard. It appears Topic did his trick, and actually managed to move them away from the wall, where all 5 crashed down the stairs as one huge weight, ripping and smashing to bits all the pictures down the stairwell wall, plus taking out a lot of the uprights from the stair banister. There was glass shard every where, and my first concern was if there were any ferrets under the carnage. Luckily the others were all down stairs, and because Topic was behind the doors, he was not hurt, and had just ran and hid in the bedroom. Once we got the stairs cleared, me having to shift these 5 smashed mirrors back outside, we discovered it has also smashed the actual stair treads, and we may have to have a completely new stair case. The good thing was, the mirrors were coated with a film, so most of the glass stayed in place, with in the frames, but the tiny shards and splinters were absolutely every where.

This could be the most expensive wardrobe ever...