Monday, May 02, 2011

The Slime

I hate snails.  I really really hate them.  Time and again they have reduced an abundant crop of seedlings to nothing in the space of a few dark hours.  I detest snails so much that I can even bring myself to squish them with my fingers; well, the teeny weeny baby ones and with gardening gloves on. I am not the Bear Gryllis of the Upper North Shore Urban Farming set.  No siree.

But yes, I do slaughter baby snails with my gloved hands.  You read that right.

So imagine, if you will, my joy, my unfettered delight, when my children, eyes alight with excitement come tearing inside yesterday waving a tupperware container.
"We caught a snail."
"Its our new pet."
"We love it."
"How can you tell if snails are boys or girls?"

I rolled my eyes and promptly forgot about it until this morning, at around 6.30am when there were cries of horror from the playroom.
The snail had escaped.
Not a moment could be lost, Mummy AND Daddy must immediately IMMEDIATELY commence a search and rescue mission.
What if the dog had eaten it??
(The dog gets sniffy about eating gourmet dog food, so there wasn't much chance).
You interrupted my nap to ask if I ate a what??
And get that camera out of my face, my ears are all messy
Anyhoo, after a brief struggle the snail was recaptured.  It was making a bid for freedom across the kitchen bench (yes, ewwww), and had made pretty impressive progress from its container in the playroom.

After being christened The Slime, our snail was then re-incarcerated in its container, this time with a lid and a few leaves for company.
The newest family member
And now I find myself in the awkward position of having responsibility for my arch enemy.  Maybe I'll get stockholm syndrome and start to relate to snails and even love them.  Maybe I'll become The Mad Snail Lady.

Or maybe The Slime will escape again tonight from its sealed container and find itself having a new life in the garden of that neighbour with the wretched endlessly yapping Pomeranian.

Maybe.

:)

Updated to add:  My husband read this post and said, "What about the slug?"
"The slug???"
"Yes there was a slug in there.  It escaped too."
"But you found it?"
"Not exactly."

18 people love me:

greenfumb said...

My cousin and I used to keep snails as pets too - poor deprived things that we were. She doesn't really have a garden these days and she is appalled that I have gone from that to stomping on them with great force at every opportunity.

Mel said...

How about getting them a cat or a bird? Anything to make them forget about the snail and the slug. Yuck!!

allconsuming said...

We need some for our chooks - wanna breed them up for us!?!

sam o said...

I use them as throw downs! Whack!
To be honest though its the big FAT super slugs that I hate.... Ewwwwww!

Tenille @ Help!Mum said...

The snail I could handle, they have a shell that you can pick them up by, but the slug...

Caitlyn Nicholas said...

LOL, I had a pet snail for about an hour when I was a kid, but was persuaded by my mother to let it roam free.

Caitlyn Nicholas said...

We do have a cat, only the poor thing runs for cover whenever it sees the kids - they gave her a bit too much love when they were toddlers I think, and now she prefers to stay out of range.

Caitlyn Nicholas said...

Shudder.

Caitlyn Nicholas said...

We used to have a plague of those huge ones in one of our bathrooms, treading on them in the dark with bare feet is up there with one of the grossest experiences of my life.

Caitlyn Nicholas said...

Yes, give me a snail over a slug any day, if I had to make a choice. Ug.

Madmother said...

Oh yuck.

Will just warn you that quite often Disqus has a meltdown for me and I cannot post on any blogs with this comment system. Last time lasted nearly 2 months. Was almost at the point of deleting all blogs with this comment system as nothing worse than reading and wanting to contribute a comment and being unable to.

I am not the only one this happens to either.

So if I vanish this is why, not because of any other reason. Cheers.

Caitlyn Nicholas said...

Thanks for letting me know MM. I knew some people had problems with it, and I've put it on with real trepidation. Trouble is there's no other platform that'll let me reply to comments in blogspot and get conversations happening, which is something I love to do, and the very thought of moving the blog after six years makes me all fainty with horror.
Sigh.
I hope it keeps working, but if it does spit the dummy I'll remove it, and maybe move the whole shebang onto my domain (ie caitlynnicholas.com).

greenfumb said...

My chooks won't have anything to do with snails or slugs - far too fussy!

Caitlyn Nicholas said...

That's because you have chooks of distinction greenfumb :)

Liz Beavis said...

I have a garden full of slugs if your kids want to come and catch them for me!
http://eight-acres.blogspot.com/2010/12/slug-wars.html

Veronica said...

I love snails for photographing. And when I'm done photographing them, I pick them off and feed them to my chooks.

Caitlyn Nicholas said...

LOL, I love it, make them feel special and beautiful and then FEED THEM TO THE KRAKEN - oh lordy, I think I just had a Clash of the Titans Moment. Gasp.

Caitlyn Nicholas said...

My kids would love to come, when do you want them, tomorrow? I could send them both tomorrow. Miss 5 is no trouble at all, everything on the blog is LIES she is a quiet respectful child who likes housework and tidying her room and hates vandalism in all its forms. Miss 6 is never lippy and never ever howls 'shut up' or 'you're a stupid mummy.' Words like that would never cross her mind. They both love to work outdoors, so after the snails if you had any cotton that needed picking or anything they'd love to give you a hand...
Please ;)