Out at dawn, salting slugs. It ain’t a purty sight. (Decided not to take a photo for you; try it yourself to see what happens if you like. It’s metamorphosis in fast forward track.)
Normally nonviolent, I had to take a stand when I found seven of the garden snails in one planter alone. If they were party-goers, they would have been at the beer laid out in the vegetable garden and at least have had a good time before they fell into a drunken drowning stupor.
You try for pretty things, flowers and colors and good things to eat. Weeds and critters are part of nature, and somehow we’ve decided that they don’t belong so we kill them. Who has decided on beauty? On what is appealing and what is not, what should live or die? But it is not mere visual valuations that we make here, it is a manner of survival. If left alone, the bad guys would overtake the good, and maybe we’d learn to believe that stalks without flowers and leaves are beautiful. But that’s not really the issue. Just as in human society and all living things, it is the powerful that overcomes the weak. I have never seen a posy eat a snail. Therefore, the bigger gun (me) steps into battle and emerges victorious. With luck and quick thinking, I shall have a crown of wreathed flowers, and my scepter shall be a salt shaker.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Lot’s wife hated snails.
Bet they hated her even more! And me, I don’t look back.
this grossed me out, but made me admire your temerity as well … someone, somewhere, sometime has to be able to do the deed.
you, my friend, are a doer of deeds.