Slugs, Not Drugs

My house has turned into a slug refugee center.  During the heavy rains, slugs have been dropping down from my kitchen vent on a daily basis, and they've been crawling their way toward my bookcases.  I have some really good books. 

The rains started back up again today, and the slugs have returned, seeking my help.  This is the one that showed up at dinner:

Slugs really move me, because I still haven't figured out why they don't get shells.  From what I can tell, they're made of the same genetic material as snails are, except they have to go through harsh days without the convenience of having automatic shelter.  There's some cruel snail god who gives out shells to his favorite creations, and leaves the dregs to fend for themselves.  I've asked a number of people about why this is, and no one can give me an adequate answer.  (I've also been trying to find out why, when my nose runs, it's only one nostril at a time.)  The snails stay outside of my house, safely tucked in their instabeds, and the slugs keeping falling in, never able to stop and sleep.  I find this perpetual struggle touching.

Every night during the rains I've gone into the kitchen, flipped on the light, and there's a slug.  Two nights ago I found a baby.  Unlike the ants who come in during the summer, operating according to the pressures of the group, the slugs go it on their own-- they're true loners, straight from the heart.   I'll walk over to the slug, stand over it and ask, "What's up?"  And its two tentacular eyes will jut out of its head, wobbling, and its doughy face will seem to say to me, "Trying to live, A.  Trying to live."  At which point I'll pick up the slug and take it outside, leaving it in a place where it has the best chance of surviving, and I'll say, "Hang in there."

You might say that I'm making the mistake of humanizing the slugs, except if the slugs were actually human, I wouldn't be so worried about them.   I had a slug drop into my place in college- one morning around sunrise, a drugged out girl wandered into my dorm room because, in her hallucinogenic state, she believed that it was the bathroom.  Pulling down her pants, she squatted over the trashcan next to my bed, getting ready to leave her own wet trail.  I shot awake, taking stock of her.  Her eyes bugged out of her head like tentacles, and her face was, indeed, doughy.  When she saw I was up, she looked at me helplessly, like she wanted my guidance.  "I need to pee," she said.   I grabbed her by the arm, yanked her up off the trashcan, and said, "Zip up your fucking pants."  Had she been a slug, I would have softened, taken her in my palm, and led her to better pastures.  Instead, I kicked her out and called campus security.

Comments

[Jane]

Re nostrils, here's a very interesting article about different "clocks" we have in our bodies that alternate from side to side, including alternation between nostrils, one being more open than the other and then the other taking over. That's about two thirds of the way down the page but the rest is v. interesting too.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s545799.htm