The War On Slugs

I hate slugs.  They are just disgusting little creatures.  I’m sure they serve some sort of purpose, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what.  Last year, I ran through the grass late at night in the backyard.  Barefoot.  I stepped on a slug.  That did nothing to promote them in my eyes.

The last few weeks, we have been looking after our German neighbors’ cat.  The cat, we call it tripod (it only has three legs) is a really sweet outdoor cat.  To make it easier on us, they made a little outdoor shelter for the cat on their patio bench, gave it a huge tank of self-filling dry food and all we have to do is check in every couple of days to make sure it has enough and maybe give her a few treats.  It’s prefect, really, as when I watch this cat for their smaller trips, the cat prefers to stay out for days at a time anyway.  And I know from experience that cats who get mad about their people traveling like to pee all over carpets.  So it’s a pretty good set-up for everyone.

Except that I realized the cat wasn’t eating.  I thought maybe she was mad about her people being gone.  Every couple of days I gave her a can of wet food to appease her and make sure she wasn’t starving.  However, one early morning visit the other day revealed the real reason the cat didn’t want to eat. 

The slugs had slimed her food.  Yuck, yuck and yuck.  It was a damp morning, and to my horror, I looked down and her food was covered with giant, slimy slugs.  She looked at me and meowed.  Ok then.

Right then and there, we declared war on the slugs.  I grabbed the food tank to scrap them off her bench.  I shuddered and did that little creepy-shiver dance thing you do when something is really gross.  The slugs landed in a pile on the ground, as did about a cup-and-a-half of her food.  It was the slimed part anyway.  I laid new towels down on her bench to cover all of the slim trails.  I filled her dish with fresh food.  I left the big pile of food on the ground to serve as a decoy.  Slugs are by nature lazy, right?  They won’t climb up her bench if there is a pile of food on the ground.

And then.  I remembered reading somewhere a long time ago that snails like the taste of beer.  If you put some in a shallow dish, they climb into it, get drunk and can’t get out.  Maybe slugs like beer too?  After all, aren't they kind of the same as slugs, just with a shell?  I went home and got a beer and some shallow plastic take-away dishes.  I came back an hour later and guess what?  There was a slug taking a drink of beer.  I found a stick and “helped” him to get a better taste. 

A couple of hours later, the five-year-old and I went back to check out the slug situation.  There was a whole bunch of them helping themselves to the pile of cat food.  I grabbed two (really long) sticks and chopstick-style, we helped them all taste the yummy beer.  Tonight when we checked, there was only one slug.  It turns out, he likes beer too.

The only part of this I’m pondering, is how am I going to explain the dishes on the patio filled with dead beer-slugs to our neighbors?  They return in a couple of days.  I sure as heck am not going to touch the beer-slug dishes.  Unless it’s to put more slugs in the beer.  Or maybe more beer into the slugs.

Current Tally in the War on Slugs: 

Me:  13  (Slugs)

Slugs:  None. 

Kitty: 2  (mice, but I’m not touching those either.) 

My neighbors are going to find a whole carnage-death scene on their patio when they return.  But I suppose as long as their cat is alive and not starving to death, maybe they won't care?  And their carpets won't have cat pee all over them...so maybe that's something too.