Keep My Words

A snail’s body is made up mostly of water. The body alone, without the shell, is called a slug.

Salt on the other hand, is very dry.

If someone pours salt onto a slug, the water in its body quickly moves out to make up for the difference in concentration. It dehydrates them, and they die. I expect that if a snail can feel, this would be most painful. It’s comparable to putting salt on an open wound – the salt takes out all of the moisture and it burns terribly. Now, imagine if your entire body was an open wound.

When I was younger, I used to pour salt onto slugs and watch them shrivel up and die. I certainly didn’t want to hurt them, I just found it interesting to watch them expire in such a way.

Long behind me are my slug murdering days, though it is now mandatory that any bug crossing my path be slaughtered. If possible, I demand the task be handled by whoever else is in the room. To implore him/her to handle the massacre, I use a combination of screams, panic, and physical displays of intense fear causing distraction from any other matter at hand. I imagine that I am quite annoying and somewhat humorous in this situation.

Frankly, I do not like bugs. The ceiling in my bedroom is a small graveyard for those who mistakenly thought it a safe path to their destination. The bugs’ lives are quickly ended by the wrath of my flip-flop. I loathe them so very much that I can’t even bring myself to wipe their crushed and broken bodies off of my ceiling. They remain as a cautioning to their friends.

Still, some bugs choose not to heed this warning, and so they end up a lifeless smear on my cold white canopy. I feel minimal remorse for this butchery, although the blood on my shoes does irritate me.