The Slug Epidemic

6-18-08

I've always been a light sleeper, so when I woke up last night to a tap-tap tapping lightly in my room, I knew something was there. It was late and I was tired, so I didn't want to walk across the room to turn the light on. I grabbed my cell phone and used its light to scan my room. At this point I was assuming it was a beetle. They often get into my room, but their sound is more of a clicking than tapping.

I'm also getting over an ant problem in my room. I think all of my recent guests and the stash of trail mix my mom just sent were a bad mix. Maybe ants were carrying something across my floor. I shined my light on a curious lump. It looked like a cat left a present. Did I have a cat locked in my room? No, I definitely would have heard that.

At last I went and turn my light on to examine this interesting lump on my floor. I nudged it with a piece of paper and out pop two antennae. WTF! It was a slug – a huge-ass slug, in my room, in the middle of the night.

I consider myself a sensible person, but I feared the slug. I tried to talk rationally to myself. It's not like it would come to my bed to attack me. It would only be halfway to my bed by the time I woke up five hours later. It's not like it would bite. It's a slug. I suppose my fear is that my room would be infiltrated by these nasty excuses for an organism and I would end up stepping on one. Really, what is dthe point of slugs?

I hastily scooped slug onto a piece of paper and threw him out the window – or rather threw it on the ground with force and imagined chickens running towards it for a violent dinner. How did it get here? How long has it been here? Are there more? I bet they are under my bed!

I was trying so hard not to listen for tapping that I couldn't help but listen. I had to put ear plugs in and even then I imagined slugs. Until I fell asleep and dreamed that a dog hatched out of a goose egg and no one thought it was strange but me. ("You guys! Dogs usually come straight out of a dog, not eggs!") The dog had quilted, stripped legs! Why couldn't anyone else see this!

I'm ok, really.