Slugs – Nature’s Mistake, My Fear.
Posted: March 28, 2012 Filed under: Foolishness | Tags: fears, Fred Flintstone, humor, phobias, postaweek, Slug, slugs, UC Santa Cruz 35 CommentsSpring has sprung.
So much changes this time of year. It is a time of renewal. The weather gets better. The days get longer. Song birds return.
I live in fear
Warmth, birds, sunshine. What’s to be afraid of? This is the time of year for my nemesis to return. Eyes on stalks. One foot. No shell. Slugs.
They are so disgusting that this is the only image of a slug I can bear to look at. (image credit ucsc.edu)
Slugs. Nature’s repulsive mistake. They creep me out. I know they can’t harm me, but they disgust me so much that I’ll go to whatever length I must to avoid them.
They Prowl The Night
When darkness falls, slugs go on walkabout. By morning they’re gone. Slimy footprints mark where they’ve been. Mostly they seem to enjoy being around things I need to touch. Things like a tool left in the yard and the morning paper. And the ground. They insist on being on the ground I need to walk on.
The other guy who can stop a car with his feet. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Yes, the ground. My ground. I’m a barefooted kind of guy. How can I run outside with my big Fred Flintstone feet to take the trash out at night with those disgusting creatures sliding around under foot? What if I step on one? I know what would happen.
If I stepped on a slug when I was barefooted I would have to have a foot transplant. I’m certain that would be the only thing that would cure the huge case of heebie-jeebies that I would get from the experience.
I’ve stepped on a slug once before. It took forever for me to get that sensation off my skin. I could not wipe my foot off enough. I resolved then never to live with that feeling again.
I like my feet. They keep me from tipping over so easily. But if I ever step on a slug again, I will go right to work on a telethon to raise money for a double foot transplant. Why both feet? Because my other foot would never be the same after living through the trauma of the slug squashing event suffered by its partner.
Spring is here. So is my nemesis. I’ve got my flip-flops near the door.
No one really likes telethons.
Blurt 
And you know what else? They’re nearly impossible to kill!! It’s diabolical. How can something so soft and gooey have an outer casing that’s so difficult to pierce with a stick? Even sausages can be cut into, but a slug? NO. So, they must be crushed. With something other than feet, though.
See! See how bad they are? You, a kind and decent soul, are so repulsed by them that you get all stabby with them.
Slugs are gross. I think I’m allergic to them. (No really, gastropods fall under the mollusks category, don’t they? …and in turn the “shellfish” banner…?) But as long as I don’t eat them, I should be OK. So, if I ever pass out with my mouth open on the ground, please make sure one doesn’t crawl into my mouth.
Have you ever tried the salt trick? I hear it’s amusing if not cruel.
My irrational yet rational fear is spiders. Man, I hate them. Oddly, big ones don’t seem to bother me as much as the little sneaky ones. I stepped on a wolf spider once to smash it, and a bazillion (yes, I counted) little baby spiders ran out from it… it must have been a mother carrying her young. Permanent creep-out. I know… Eco-system, balance, blah blah, they eat bugs & all that… but they’re still absolutely disgusting.
What does that have to do with anything? I can feel you on the double-feet replacement.
Also, you might want to try a beer trap.
If I stepped on a slug and a bazillion baby slugs came out I would collapse, curl into a fetal position, and live the rest of my days in that position. They would bury me in a little circular coffin.
Have someone else empty the beer trap for you.
Circular coffin? I like it…
Ewwww…. ::shudder::
See! You’ve got shoes ready by the door now, dont you?
I totally love that slug mascot. Totally.
I feel like I’ve shared this before, but maybe not. I, too, have a slug aversion that I had to admit to a friend upon some occasion requiring me to explain to a friend why there were small dishes of beer placed throughout the flower beds and along the sidewalk to my front door.
He found it enormously entertaining that I, a harmless individual by nature, would be engaged in full-scale campaign to annihilate the slug population by alcoholism/drowning. I reminded him of the very basic tenets of “survival of the fittest.” This became “a thing.”
One day I received a package in the mail with a bottle of beer. The original label had been replaced with a label that read “Slug B Gone.”
Again here we are with you, a good hearted person, driven to drowning a creature because of its own vileness.
Drowning. Stabbing. That is what you get slugs! Good DAY to you. I said good day.
(let’s work on a little anti-slug flame thrower)
We have slugs at home. Whenever I find one in the garden, I take great pleasure in pulling on my gardening gloves, grabbing the little slimester and flinging it over the bank into the bay. I make a little squealing sound afterwards and stomp around going “ick, eww, ick.”
The neighbor thinks it’s funny…but then I know he’s been dumping them from his yard into mine. Bastard.
You can pick them up with gloves? Best case I can do it with a shovel.
What’s with the slug haters? They are merely snails without homes. Give the homeless snail a break. It means no harm; it has just fallen on hard times. Be kind. I promise they will not hurt you.
Your other option is to take care of my boys for a week or more. They will search high and low for every slug within a 10 mile radius of your house to add to their list of pets. Let me know if you are interested.
Oh god no…those poor kids would need double hand transplants!
When my sister was six or seven, she too made the acquaintance of a slug with her bare foot. She’s 35 now and is still trying to recovery from the experience.
We are friends, Wendi. Anyone in your family who has been affected by slugs can be on my telethon. I’m inviting Little Feat to come and perform a song about buying your sister and I new feet.
Yes! I almost didn’t open this post for fear you’d have a real picture of a real slug.
I’ve heard that if you take something like a pie pan and fill it with beer they will be attracted to it and drown. I’ve never tried it because (1) who wants to attract slugs, (2) how do you deal with a bunch of drowned slugs and (3) waste of good beer. One time I witnessed one being deliquesced with an application of salt. I don’t want to think about it.
Don’t think about it. Run to your happy place!
Eeeeeee…I hate slugs too. I’m very offended when they rest on my newspaper when I’m trying to bring it inside, aaaagh. And I live in Oregon, dampness capital of the universe. When I was in college my roommate had a t-shirt with a pocket, with a picture of slugs coming out of the pocket. I found a book for her called “Slugs”, by David Greenberg. “Slick a slug with super glue, stick it on your sister Sue. Place another, maybe two, in her favorite high-heeled shoe.” It’s hysterical. But you probably shouldn’t read it…the slugs in the drawings have very strange looks on their faces…
Now see, there is one of my deficiencies. Greenburg has that book idea and says yeah people will buy it. I’d never write it because I’m sure it’d creep folks out. One of us got paid. The other is me.
No way you’d catch me in a slug shirt.
Slugs, drugs, bugs, thugs,Uggs….The New Axis of Evil? I am with you on the “Slimy footprints mark where they’ve been.” Creepy! .
That is the axis, in order of potential harm to society.
A question, por favor . . .
Is there a limit to the number of questions from any given individual for your upcoming press conference?
Originally I didn’t think I had anything to ask. After all, where a man stands on slugs, so to speak, tells you all you really need to know about him.
As events have transpired, I find myself with two or three things that might need clarification. Just wonderin’.
Gracias.
Sure, fire away. The only thing my press agent advises me to ask is that you spread questions over the course of the event rather than a bunch of questions in one shot.
Denada.
Somebody told me slugs eat those earwig things that live on certain plants, so we promptly got rid of all those plants. Fortunately, I haven’t seen a slug since. Of course, walking my Sheltie, I see lots of slug-like, slimy places on other people’s sidewalks. They must still have those plants. You’re right — slugs are yucky!
Wait…you bring up two things that need to be discussed.
1. There is something stuipider than a slug?
2. What plants are those? I will be ripping out all the earwig plants as soon as I know.
Slugs are just rude. If you’re going to leave a trail of slime behind you, you should at least carry a towel to wipe it up.
It’s just common courtesy, don’t you think?
Slugs…. Nature’s boogers. My worst slug experience was when I hit own while mountain biking. The aggressive tread on my tire grabbed it and then flung it up directly into my face. Needless to say, I lost all decorum for the following minutes.
Plus, they keep gutting my strawberry patch, so that’s enough to make me despise them. Luckily, they love beer and will happily drown themselves in it if you leave it out. Kinda like teenagers!
Hello, ewww, and welcome to Blurt.
If that ever happened to me I would have to pray to be attacked by a face ripping chimp on xanax. If one were not available, I would have to just find a chimp and get him stoned.
“If I stepped on a slug when I was barefooted I would have to have a foot transplant”
The one line that has made me laugh hardest in the last 12 months. Hands down.
You should see the dance that follows a slug stepping.
[…] Slugs – Nature’s Mistake, My Fear. (blurtblog.net) […]
[…] As I’ve mentioned in the past, I find slugs repulsive. If I found one in my home I would have to give serious consideration to torching the joint. If I stepped on a slug, I’d be so repulsed I’d have to saw the contaminated foot off. Anything that is so vile as to make a rational man like me consider self amputation has no place on our planet. […]
[…] not to say that I’m fearless. Certain things creep me out. For instance, I’m afraid of slugs. That is a reasonable […]