I have a lot of snails in my yard. They come out when it’s raining and slowly climb up the garden walls, usually coming to a stop halfway up, where they stick for days. They hide amongst the bushes and chomp away at my plants – oh, and they scare the crap out of Puddy (which is rather amusing, especially if I race after her holding out a snail – she goes absolutely mental!). They can get a little overwhelming in numbers and when this happens, I’m not ashamed to admit I gather as many as I can in a bucket and dispose of them quickly and quietly.

So anyway, I was outside the other day gathering snails and I found the cutest little snail. It was so little and fragile that I thought for a moment, what if this snail is the one that makes me change my mind about snails? I mean, when I picked it up, instead of shoving its head back inside the shell like the bigger ones do, it stuck its head out and wiggled its feelers around. I actually felt a twinge of guilt since I’ve probably, at some point, murdered a member of its family.

Look at it, isn’t it cute? I’ve eaten snails in Paris before and I must admit, if they had come out looking as cute as this one, I might have felt a little hesitant. The snails we’d eaten didn’t exactly look like snails, just little black meaty things inside a snail shell.

Then … the snail did something gross. It pooped on me!

See that? That’s a big, gross snail poop!

Trying not to freak out, I flicked the snail poop off my hand … and then I saw the slimy trail across my fingers! I  suddenly remembered why I hate snails. It was like snapping out of a dream. This thing wasn’t cute, it was gross!

Without hesitation, I tossed Slimy the Snail into my bucket of victims and hurried inside to sanitise my hands. Snails are like mice – they could be cute pets if they didn’t leave a continuous trail of icky after them like slime, or poop. Or both.

At least Puddy doesn’t have a trail of icky. Just a trail of destruction…