Don't Cross Me

In general I am an animal lover.  I think I've mentioned this before, but I get sick to my stomach when I see dead deer on the side of the road, and I think that groundhogs are some of the cutest animals on earth.  I will swerve (without being totally unsafe) to miss hitting a bird or a raccoon or anything else that runs in front of the road.  I can't volunteer at animal shelters because I can't even handle the thought of being around so many unwanted animals and not being able to take them home.  And the images of those poor birds down in the Gulf of Mexico, covered in oil, and basically dying right on camera chokes me up.  The physical reaction that my body experiences when I see innocent animals suffering is amazing to me.  I can't control it and sometimes it consumes my thoughts.

But when an animal species crosses me or messes with my home or my garden, it's added to "The List."

This year there's a new animal on The List.  The slug.

 Our slugs look a lot like this ugly guy (Source)

Our garden is being taken over by slugs.  I don't remember this being a problem in the past, so I'm thinking that it has to do with the fact that we really enriched the soil in the garden this year - I've also seen a considerable increase in the number of worms in our garden since we did the enriching.  But slugs aren't like worms, and as far as I can tell, slugs are good for absolutely nothing.  In fact, according to Wikipedia, some slugs even EAT worms!

When picking strawberries the other night, I had to throw away as many berries as I was able to keep. Almost all of the berries that I threw away had slugs on them.  Early on in the picking process if I saw a slug I jumped when I touch it's slimy body, but then ultimately just flicked it off.  But then I realized that by just flicking them off, I'm still leaving them in the garden, where they can just climb onto another berry.  So then I starting throwing them outside of the garden, but as far as I'm concerned, slugs are pests and pests don't just go away if you relocated them slightly. 

So last night when I was picking berries, and I started noticing more and more slugs, I got really angry.  I was so mad that we spent so much money and put so much hard work into these strawberries, just to have them rotted through by evil, nasty slugs. 

That's when some clicked in my brain, and slugs were instantly added to The List.  Instead of flicking the slugs, or throwing them outside of the garden, I started squishing them with my bare fingers until they were dead.  This held true for ants and any other bugs that I noticed on my berries.  I was through with being a bleeding heart animal activist.  You mess with my berries, you mess with me.  And you mess with me, I mess with you.  Me equals much bigger than you, you stupid slugs, so you equals dead. 

Please don't judge me - I realize how horribly mean I sound, but seriously, they are killing my fruits and costing me money.  I've done some research on other ways to get rid of slugs, and they are all equally evil, including:

• Pouring salt on them 
• Putting sand around the plants you're trying to protect (sand apparently will rip a slug apart)
• Putting out cups of beer (they're attracted to the yeast) so that they'll climb in and die
• Pick them off plants and throw them in salt water

So really, I feel like I'm doing the slugs a favor by crushing them with my fingers.  Salt just sounds like torture and drowning isn't so nice either (although I admit I am probably going to try the beer method.)   So really, I'm providing them with a quick and humane death, while providing them with an awesome last meal of strawberries.  I'm an angel, in that case!

Animal kingdom, beware.

(Oh, and in case you're wondering, other animals on The List include deer (in my yard), chippies (chipmunks), mosquitos, ants, and mice.  Now that I live in the country, I have a feeling this list is going to start getting a lot longer.... )