One big happy

Our neighbors a few doors down have a rowhouse slightly bigger than ours, which is good, because the population that resides there is triple ours. In addition to two people, there are two large dogs, a rabbit, and most recently, a ferret.

Our introduction to the ferret comes as Joe and I are returning from a walk, greatly invigorated by our excursion down to the corner and back, when suddenly he stops and points at something. There, in another neighbor's garden, is a long, whitish animal who seems curious about his surroundings but not so much about us. He does not run away. My first thought is that it is an opposum, but it seems too small.

"Do you think it's a rat?" Joe says, echoing my next thought. We are quite calm, considering we are discussing the possibility of a rat being less than two feet from us.

I check the animal's tail. As fluffy as the rest of him. Not a rat, thank goodness.

Next Joe proposes a ferret. I realize I have never actually seen a ferret, and this one does not conform to my ferret expectations. Besides, what is a ferret doing outside?

The neighbor's incorrigible dog comes bounding down the steps and aims straight for us. I wonder, briefly, if I should be more concerned about the ferret or myself.

"Do something!" I whisper urgently to Joe. "If Flirt sees this -- this -- whatever it is, he'll go ballistic!"

But Flirt gives the animal no more than a passing glance. He is far more interested in jumping on me, as if I am a long-lost friend he was sure he'd never see again. Both Joe and the ferret could be invisible for all Flirt seems to care.

Our neighbor, who must spend half her days trying to get Flirt to do what he doesn't want to do and to not do what he wants to, comes looking for him. Joe yells to her, "Is this your" -- he pauses, realizing we haven't yet decided what it is, and chooses the safe route -- "your animal?"

She looks at the ferret, her face showing as much surprise as if she had discovered that her dishwasher had suddenly escaped from the house and was standing in the neighbor's yard. She hardly knows which animal to chase first, but chooses the ferret. It, however, is not about to be caught and returned to the house. Not yet.

And so she chases it up the neighbor's porch, where it easily evades her grasp by slinking through the porch railings to the next neighbor's porch, forcing her to go back down the stairs and run around to the next porch. And all the while, Flirt is bounding back and forth across the grass, hardly able to contain his excitement. He, Flirt, is loose in the great outdoors, and his owner is running after another animal! She is not yelling at him! He bounds off to more neighbors who have gathered, wanting them to celebrate this miracle with him.

For there is now a small crowd watching. Flirt discovers a baby in the crowd, and immediately decides that he must investigate. Meanwhile the neighbor's second dog, Tuxedo, who exercises infinitely more self-control than Flirt, is peering out of the back door. Clearly not wanting to miss anything, he still cannot bring himself to breach those bounds set for him. He nudges the door open but does not join the fray.

Finally, the neighbor corrals her brood and heads back inside. Later we hear the simple story of how the ferret came to join them: The husband went to buy rabbit food one day, and came home with a ferret. "It was just sitting there in the cage, looking at me, and I said, 'You're coming home with me, bud.' "

I duly notify my own husband that this is not to happen when HE goes to the store ("But the tarantula was so cute..."). But if he did bring home a ferret, at least now I would know what it was.