two mornings ago, that'd make it saturday morning, i woke up to find a sparkly ribbon winding across my carpet. immediately i knew what i hoped it was: a snail. sometime last semester i was walking home from bart and thinking about snails on a particularly foggy, misty evening. this particular evening with the appropriate conditions had become a snail mine field. i believe that stepping on a snail is the single worst sensation to occur in daily life. and it makes me feel terribly guilty. so i'm avoiding snails (which means walking in the street) and thinking about snails. asking questions about snails. (are they BORN with their shells? what are they eating out here? where do they go when it's not wet outside? what's the difference between slugs and snails? etc etc.) so i do some research and decide that snails are very interesting and i would like a snail terrarium of my very own. i looked up how to raise terrestrial snails. what breeds of snails exist. what to feed them. how to prepare their enclosure, etc etc.
BUT i needed to wait until i had the time to devote to such endeavors.
and then, oh man, it was possible my snail had come to ME! what a delivery from the universe. now if i could just find it. it shouldn't be so hard. there's a lot of crap in there, but i obviously need to clean it out anyway and a snail shouldn't be too hard to find.
oh the arrogance.
i cleaned out half of my room and found so many more sparkly trails as to feel like i'm living in a forest. which i kind of am with the amount of dust and cat hair that has accumulated in the corners.
no snail.
i had to wait until today to clean out the second, more extensive half. no snail trails. not one. so it favors one side of the room...
i pull out my desk. i pull out drawers. i look UNDER where the drawers are. i reach into cobwebs and dust bunnies. gross, but no snail.
wtf?!
sunday there were no new trails but today, there were. i even left out some little homes that i hoped i'd find a snail snoozing in after gorging itself on the delicious kale and sugar snap peas i'd meticulously torn to bite-size pieces. nothing. not even a slime trail to and fro the greens.
as i was working at my desk tonight, i kept my head lamp close at hand. i knew that if i kept it dark enough and quiet enough and i didn't do anything CRAZY, i might be able to catch my snail in the act and we could begin our life together.
i looked up ways to trap terrestrial snails. i learned that they're attracted to yeast and you could drown them in plates of stale beer. they also like pepsi. and artichokes. but do not like human hair clippings or egg shells.
i began to feel giant, phantom snails crawling, oozing up my legs under my dark desk.
i implored egon to hunt some snails. sniff em out! find that snail! she just looked at me. confused.
i take a break from painting a second beat board of hazel, pause 'this american life' (the episode about dads for father's day) and decide to see what i can see.
and then my eye catches a color where that color just should not be and simultaneously my heart sinks and i get chills and am thoroughly grossed out.
a slug. in my heating vent.
i like insects and creepy crawlies but i apparently really don't like slugs.
and that is what i found.
a SLUG. EEEWWWW.
the grate is removable so i take it out.
i set my little buffet in its path in the hopes that it will just ooze in, start munching (gratefully, of course) and i won't have to get nearer than the cardboard's width to its sliming gooeyness.
it seems to work! it goes straight in there! YESSSSS!
and then, no. NO! don't turn, you fool!
but it does. it turns and i have to use a used incense stick to pry its goo off the heating grate and get all of its 4+" into the tube. gross gross gross.
alright. IN the tube. gross, but in. but then. oh no. all i can think to myself is 'don't touch me don't touch me don't touch me'
i leave my room, eyes not leaving the approaching attack, headlamp illuminated i unlock the front door and it is misting and foggy and perfect for a slug.
dylan and caro and i decide my visitor MUST be a snail, cause we have tons of snails and none of us have ever. EVER seen a slug around. as i step out the door, eyes not leaving the protruding eye stalks that are inching ever closer to my fingers, i step on something but can't see what it is. i set the apparatus on the cement near the flowers. it oozes around eventually toppling the apparatus. and into the dirt. phew. gross.
i stand, take a misty breath and see a tiny slug on the drive way. #2! and as i approach the door, i see what i stepped on. slug #3. a big one. and though it wasn't as bad as stepping on a snail, it was just as gruesome and i did feel bad.
so much for no slugs in our neighborhood. tomorrow i have decided to go on a snail hunt to start my terrarium.
and it will be great and not gross at all.
Great story, thanks for posting
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