Ferrets

These are my children, Murray and Waffles.

Okay, so, first of all, many of you are not going to be familiar with ferrets. I wasn't either, until I serendepitously ended up with these two (more on that in a minute). Ferrets are small domestic mammals belonging to the weasel family, averaging a couple pounds and about a foot and a half long when stretched out. They're very social despite sleeping for 16 hours of the day, and can be quite rambunctious little troublemakers requiring a bit of "ferret-proofing".

My boyfriend and I attend school in the same city, and during the fall 2012 semester we had synchronized lunch breaks. We used to go to the pet store and watch these two ferrets sleep and hop around a few times a week. My boyfriend grew up with ferrets, so he was familiar with them (I only ever had dogs). One day, his mother was visiting and we stopped by the pet store after lunch to watch the ferrets for a few minutes. The salesgirl informed us that the one had been there so long that he was free, the other one was half off, and she wanted them to go to the same home so she offered her employee discount if we were to adopt both of them. I suppose the look on my face when she said that (along with his mother's similar reaction) convinced my boyfriend pretty quickly that we were going home with two new friends.

Murray

Murray was the "free" ferret, and we quickly picked up on why. He's very, very smart, and very, very athletic, and you can imagine what that combination results in (if you guessed trouble, you're dead on!). He throws temper tantrums, knocks things over just because he feels like it, and can escape from nearly anything and everything. His greatest escape resulted in him leaping up on top of "ferret jail" as we called it and popping out the window screen. I noticed him out the window on the fire escape, and my boyfriend had to climb out our third-floor window to grab a scared, shaking Murray before he fell. Everything is now Murray-proofed. However, he's extremely playful and loves to flail up and down stairs, enjoys being chased, and will even wag his tail if he's having a great time. His favorite thing to do is steal plastic packaging and hoard it in the cage. Currently he has the following stashed: an empty pack of batteries, a plastic packaging from a hairbrush, three empty packs of birth control pills, and a mangled plastic bit that came in a pack of headphones.

Waffles

While Murray has taken to my boyfriend, Waffles believes I'm his mom. He follows me, waits for me, and sulks when I'm gone. Waffles is pretty fat...much fatter than Murray...but he's still quite agile for his size. He doesn't run so much as hops around. His favorite thing in the entire world is a box, any box, if he can sleep in it or hide under it. Aside from boxes, Waffles loves packages of writing utensils (seriously). He'll take a bag of pencils, or highlighters, and drag them into one of his boxes and guard them from Murray. If you move them, he brings them right back. Waffles is laid-back and adorable and listens to me because he's the best pet. My boyfriend says that Waffles is dumb and probably would have a lisp if he could talk. My boyfriend is mean.