The Back Yard

Slugs:

You all know that I am an animal lover. I will absolutely not kill a spider or even a fly. I have even rescued many a mouse from my cats mouths when they were outside in Chicago.

Warning: Do not read further if you are a “Slug Lover”:

We have a little tiny courtyard at the back of our apartment in New York.

Our friends who live in Melbourne will agree, that because of the rain there in Victoria, we used to get millions of them over summer & autumn.

We’re so used to, and not opposed to the odd slug going missing in Melbourne!

Here in New York I have only had three slugs inhabit my yard this summer, (three in total, not kidding), so I didn’t care about them much.

Frankly, they can go about their business, as long as those gross moving sluggish beings don’t come near me. I never wanted to hurt them like all of our other BBQ partners did though!!

I used to pick up ‘Dan’ (that’s what I called what I think was the boy slug – the one with the stripes), when he got too close to the BBQ and R’s size 14 feet. I used to pick him up with a leaf, very, very carefully, and pop him into the neighbours yard. We don’t like that guy next door anyway – Dan always came back to our garden, well I guess it was his destiny? (Past tense, very sad, you see where I am going with this).

The three of them, “Mum, Dad, and baby slug” have been here for a long time, only coming out for rain. (I’m getting dramatic, they probably didn’t even know each other).

This afternoon I fear (I know) I have squashed them all. I have been concentrating on avoiding them for months now during my frequent cigarette breaks outside, but today I was multi-tasking, not looking, and well…it’s a real pity.

Well, they are squashed now, and it wasn’t on purpose I promise – I even apologized to them after stepping on all three in succession (and thank the Good Lord for thongs).

Finally… Farewell Slugs, and we hope you come back in the next life as something less gross.