by Kelley Rouse
A slimy situation, a grimy truth to tell, about a "close" encounter with one of the more abhorred of living things; a slug.
It was just another Saturday night, hot and humid. I was sitting out on the front porch with friends, trying to catch the breeze in candlelight, so not to attract bugs, and laughing and talking. I reached down by my chair and picked up my mug of iced coffee. I felt it as soon as my lips touched the rim of the glass, but my brain went into complete denial that anything that felt so icky could be in my drink.
I was actually dropping my arm back down towards the floor, glass in hand, like nothing had happened, when I decided to take a look at what that thing was. To my complete disbelief, nay, horror, I discovered a good-sized, slimy slug right on the inside of my glass.
"Excuse me," I said quietly, for a person who had just practically kissed a slug, (but with enough drama to put a halt to the rapid conversation). "I appear to be... sharing by coffee with... a.... slug !"
An immediate uproar of "OOOH!...GROSS!...YUCK!" broke out, and then I was completely undone and gave one of those quick shudders. I tried to loosen the slugs' grip with a barrage of ice and coffee as I quickly tossed the remaining contents of the drink toward the trees. But the slug stuck fast. I went down the steps to the grass and slid it off with my fingers, flinching with every touch. But that was not the worse to come.
As I make a quick climb back up to the porch, an associate of my coffee-companion, also on a caffeine run no doubt, had to settle for becoming ooze between my toes.
There are times when, no matter how fast one lifts one's foot... it simply is not fast enough. But alerted, by then, of the presence of crawling creatures, I was appalled to look down and see a virtual army of the slimy beasts on the move across the brick steps.
I said as much, and my friend Bev was up out of her chair in a flash and walking over to get a closer look. "So there are," she said with grim determination. "I know how to fix them!" She hurried into the house and returned with a box of salt.
Not the salt! The dreaded salt! All of a sudden I flashed back to when I was a murderous child and would put salt on snails and watch them twist and turn in agony.
"This will kill them," said their executioner with some satisfaction. "Yeah," I couldn't help quipping, "a slow torturous death."
Bev was unmoved. She salted those slugs good and without mercy, leaving a pile of white caustic crystals around each writhing victim. As we all gathered around, fascinated, I watched this really big slug with awesome antennas and felt called upon to ask the last ditch question, although it was clearly too late. "Aren't slugs good for anything?"
"No," came an immediate round of response.
"Oh," I said, feeling, "too bad, to not be good for anything".
July 7, 1996 Kelley Rouse All Rights Reserved