Slug Hunting

I think I have mentioned that I grew up on a farm. I am no sissy, prissy girl. I am familiar with all sorts of bugs and vegitation. Our swimming pool, growing up was the bar-ditch. What is a bar-ditch, you might ask? Well, it's just the ditch beside the dirt road that collects all the run-off water from rain or crop irrigation.

I spent lots of time outside growing up. I know how to kill mice and I'm not afraid to do it. I can kill the spiders that live in my house. I often find some sick pleasure in being able to take care of these things myself. I know the difference between good snakes and bad snakes. I know how to kill one if I need to.

But in all my growing up years as a farm girl, playing with worms and caterpillars we NEVER had slugs. I don't think I had even seen a slug until we moved to PA. Don't they like wet climates? I don't know. But we have a legion of slugs that decided that our porch connecting to MY bedroom is their new sanctuary!

Dan makes fun of me because I figured out that they were getting in the sitting room connected to our Master bedroom. It's pretty common knowledge that slugs and snails leave a trail of slime, right? Even this slug ignorant farm girl knows that. What I did not know is that the slime dries into a clear shimmering film. I kept seeing this film all over my carpet. When the sun would hit it just right it would sparkle. I could not figure out what this was. Until one night for some reason Dan and I went out onto the porch for some reason late at night. We saw a slug crawling around on the porch. The next morning I noticed the trail on the concrete. It lead to the door! And sure enough as I opened the door the trail was faintly recognizable along the wall in our bedroom. Hummm...Ok. It's just a slug and at least it has the decency to exit the same way it came in. No problem, right. I told Dan what I had discovered and he wanted to see the proof so I showed him the trail all along the carpet. He now calls me "the slug hunter". He says this is proof that I should be a CIA agent but it seems like a weak association to me seeing as how people and slugs have a relatively different mode of travel and pace. I simply link it to a gift for observing my surroundings, or simply being aware of them and to Dan, apparently this is a coveted characteristic.

Now my curiosity is peaked. I need to catch this slug in the act. But I am not so desperate to actually execute a stake-out. But we were sitting in the sitting room late one night visiting and I caught a glimpse of something dark on the floor board. I saw it in the reflection of the mirrored closet doors. (We can talk about that some other time.) It took me a few seconds to get the image reversed and actually find the perp. But I calmly brought it to Dan's attention and we moved in for a closer look. Sure enough, it was the slug. This slug was no longer or wider than a common earth worm. But, let me tell you, these are nasty bugs!! They're all slimy and cold. GROSS! Dan looked around the room for something to scrape him off the wall with and once that was accomplished we had to figure out what to do with him. Here are a few of our suggestions: squash him; too gross and messy, throw him out; he obviously knows the way back in!, toss him, WHERE? We decided to toss him. I let Dan do it, but I suggesting tossing him in the front yard. That way we had at least a few days before he made it back around to the back porch and we could figure out a plan by then.

Case solved. Case closed.

Not so.

Now I have this compulsion. Every night I have to go out on the back steps and look for more slugs. We have since found three more and all of these keep getting fatter and longer and nastier. I don't want them coming in to my sitting room and having a party on my carpet! We have kept with the theory of tossing them. Sometimes into the neighbors yard, they have dogs. I secretly hope the dogs will find them but perhaps even dogs are grossed out by these things. Who knows?

Last night I did my final check before bed and found one. BUT Dan was in the shower. I told him but he didn't immediately jump out and come to my rescue, so that's when the farm girl independence kicked back on. I found a piece of paper on Dan's dresser and coaxed the nasty thing onto it and brought it to Dan in the shower. I didn't know what to do next. Even MY farm capabilities have there limits! I suggested flushing it down the toilet but Dan said it might crawl back up!!! THE HORROR!!! Can you imagine, you turn around to flush the toilet and there coming up out of the bowl onto the seat..... I can't even finish that thought because it leads to other, worse thoughts. Then he suggested pouring salt on it. I am not sure if this is an experiment, a sure fire answer for death or just torture so I take it to the front yard and toss it under our tree. I am hoping one of the hundreds of birds living there will spot it and take it home for breakfast.

The sad thing is....this morning, I checked for the tale-tell filmy trail. It has become an obsession. What do I do? How do I get rid of them? I think I am going to have to do some research. Get better aquainted with my enemy. I mean, that's what an agent would do right?