Mr. Bump

In 1992, when she was 11 years old, Jessica saved her allowance and bought Tucker for $49 from a lady whose roommates thought her ferrets were stinky. We lived in a house with no carpet, so Tucker (or 'Mr. Bump" as he came to be known) was allowed to run free. His first activity was to dig a hole in the couch, a sort of combination bedroom/storage bin in which he kept anything he could squeeze through his little ferret doorway.

Mr. Bump was an adept thief. He stole shoes, toilet plungers, erasers and many, many tampons. Visitors were asked to give notice ten minutes in advance of leaving, because it took us much longer to get a shoe out of the couch than it took Mr. Bump to put it in.

When he was two, Mr. Bump went (without permission) to visit our Croatian neighbors. They too had a couch, this one in their sun room where they liked to lounge on summer evenings. At some point between the moment we lost him and the moment we found him, Mr. Bump built a second home in the Croatian couch. When he emerged from its depths into the lap of Mrs. Croatia, she, the couch and it's cushions exploded from the sun room at almost the speed of light.

Mr. Bump was unscathed and not nearly as frightened as Mrs. Croatia. Neither she nor Mr. Croatia ever spoke to us in English again.

Mr. Bump lived with us for six years. He died on November 17, 1998, and now resides in a tiny urn, too small for plungers, shoes, or even tampons.