Killers To Caretakers (or The Beauty Of Slugs)

I studied journalism in college, but never pursued it as a career. Here is an article I wrote a couple of years ago. (I am antsy to post something, but too tired to write something new.) It would have been front page news across the globe if I was actually working for a paper. Really.

As youngens, my three siblings and I were recruited by our mother to rid her extensive gardens of slugs. Luring them with shallow containers of beer had proved rather ineffective, and I suppose this was a better way to get us out of her hair than sending us to play in the traffic. So we were offered ten cents per dead slug as compensation for our labour.

How, you ask, was this heinous deed accomplished? The tiny gastropod mollusks met their demise in buckets of soapy water. Cruel perhaps, but they had all but killed many plants in our yard... and hell hath no fury like an angry gardener.

Laurel was a particularly efficient killer of slugs. I doubt that she greatly enjoyed the task, but I do recall seeing dollar signs in her eyes as she hunted them. No rock or leaf was left unturned and the money quickly added up... She was once paid thirty dollars for a short evening of work.

None of my siblings, or I, are in the business of killing slugs any longer. Believe it or not, two of them are actually keeping slugs as pets.

Yes. You read that correctly.

Laurel and Nick are currently living in Victoria. And as anyone who has ever been to Vancouver Island knows, the slugs in that part of the country are rather larger than the variety we are used to in Ontario.

I once heard a story on CBC radio of a west coast man who couldn't find it in his heart to kill the banana slugs he regularly found in his yard... But he had no intention of letting them stay. The only solution he could think of was to scoop them up into a bucket and drive them far, far, away from his home, where he would let them go. He swore that they always found their way back. Homing slugs?

After buying plastic terariums from a pet store and filliing them with dirt, moss, and driftwood, Laurel and Nick set out to find their "pets."

Nick is now the proud parent of Egon and Slimer. He had intended to have a third slug, a baby, whose growth he would have studied. But it escaped at some point. Perhaps in Laurel's apartment, as that is where it was discovered to be missing. Laurel said she thought this unlikely, as they would have seen slime trails.

Laurel has named her slugs Mr. Sluggo (my clever suggestion - arch nemesis of Mr. Bill on SNL) and Mathusela.

"I can't really tell them apart yet," Laurel laughed. " I have to wait and see what there personalities are like before I know which one is which." So far she has noticed that one is definitely more active than the other.

Pets are not allowed in Laurel's apartment. She has tried to get around this technicality by keeping hers on the balcony... Although they may be moved indoors when she cleans her apartment up a bit and finds some room for them. She seems to be unconcerned about the no pet policy.

"They're slugs, so how would anybody know?" she asked. Hmmm... No tell-tale barking. Perhaps she will get away with this violation after all.

Nick has apparently already complained that his slugs don't do enough. So their stay at his home may be short lived. Hopefully he will release them into the wild rather than turning them into the poor man's shell-less escargot.

Laurel told me that escargot tastes all right, but she can't imagine eating a banana slug.

"They are just too big. Escargot can be swallowed whole," she said.