The Truth About Ferns and Slugs
I had a revelation this weekend. A revelation concerning slugs.
I began the weekend simply and without pretense of heavenly messages from on high o'er the subject of our slimey evolutionary underlings: Setting up shop in Wildcat Mountain State Park, walking amoungst the Black Stem, Fiddle and Maidenhead ferns lining the hiking paths, even scaling the peak of Mount Pisgah. Though I must admit that a mid-westerner's definition of a mountain is a bit mild to say the least. A top the mountain one could overlook the Kickapoo River valley for miles in all directions, all the way to the closest town of Ontario (WI not CAN), population 435. The Kickapoo River itself, a placard nearby explained, owes its moniker to the Algonquins and their native tongue and means "He who goes here, and then there." Metaphysicalize it if you must, but if you ask me that's a fancy way of saying, "That's one crooked river, yo."
All of the above stands purely as context. A setting of the scene if you will. A short introduction such that you might understand the state of mind I was occupying when I decended upon an area of dense underbrush, squatting over a plastic wash basin in order to wash the dishes from our campfire dinner. As I bent down to begin I noticed a slug a few feet away. I watched that slug amble over a pile of leaves, stop, eat, meander some more, stop, eat, bumble its way along, etc while I did the entire batch of dirty diningwear. And by the end of my cleaning and observing period I had come to a great, however inevitable, conclusion.
Slugs for all intents and purposes, suck.
You laugh. But you shouldn't. It's that kind of attitude that lets these creatures get away with their destructive and demoralizing behavior in the first place. Acting like their seeming neutrality isn't hurting anyone is only adding fuel to the raging inferno. Slugs should be taken on. Slugs should be dealt with. Slugs never did no one no good.
And here's why: Have you ever thought about what a slug does? I hadn't before two days ago. And now I know. What does a slug do? It, Well... It doesn't. A slug, in my highly scientific viewing period, is never really doing anything. What a slug does is spend its days "not" doing. It anti-exists. A slug undoes day after day after day and no one seems to notice. Here is a creature who has by nature recreated itself as descriptive form of speech. One can be a slug or act sluggish. "Henry, will you please stop working so sluggishly?" Slugs so verily embody a negative attribute that we deplore it in others. Why then do we continue to allow the very living emblem of that negative trait to persist?
The slug is a creature who chooses to be willfully uninteresting. To live as a slug is a passive aggressive's paradise. The slug cannot, rather will not fight for anything, its territory, its food, its mates, in the end the lowly slug will not even fight for itself. Its own life will not draw out the slug to defend or attack, in fact, a slug's only line of defense is its own consumate blehness. Because in the end a slug is an unsatisfying foe. What pleasure can we take in vanquishing an enemy whose response to attack is "squish"? Bother it and it simply tenses and tries to make itself smaller, as if to say, "Maybe if I just stop existing you'll leave me alone." At most a slug will pluck up later walk around for a bit and goo in your general area.
Tell me I'm anthropomorphizing. I'm ok with that. They still suck.
And this kind of attitude will not stand with me. I do not cotton to those who sit around and slug themselves to death. At least with the ignoble badger someone somewhere had to say, "Hey! This rodent thing is badgering me! What is this weird thing? Umm. It's a... badger. That's right. A badger." You have to find something to get riled up about. Something to get up off the couch for.
And dear readers, you think about that. And the next time you see a slug, give it the evil eye. Not that it will make the slug any less worthless. But at least it will know how you feel.
I began the weekend simply and without pretense of heavenly messages from on high o'er the subject of our slimey evolutionary underlings: Setting up shop in Wildcat Mountain State Park, walking amoungst the Black Stem, Fiddle and Maidenhead ferns lining the hiking paths, even scaling the peak of Mount Pisgah. Though I must admit that a mid-westerner's definition of a mountain is a bit mild to say the least. A top the mountain one could overlook the Kickapoo River valley for miles in all directions, all the way to the closest town of Ontario (WI not CAN), population 435. The Kickapoo River itself, a placard nearby explained, owes its moniker to the Algonquins and their native tongue and means "He who goes here, and then there." Metaphysicalize it if you must, but if you ask me that's a fancy way of saying, "That's one crooked river, yo."
All of the above stands purely as context. A setting of the scene if you will. A short introduction such that you might understand the state of mind I was occupying when I decended upon an area of dense underbrush, squatting over a plastic wash basin in order to wash the dishes from our campfire dinner. As I bent down to begin I noticed a slug a few feet away. I watched that slug amble over a pile of leaves, stop, eat, meander some more, stop, eat, bumble its way along, etc while I did the entire batch of dirty diningwear. And by the end of my cleaning and observing period I had come to a great, however inevitable, conclusion.
Slugs for all intents and purposes, suck.
You laugh. But you shouldn't. It's that kind of attitude that lets these creatures get away with their destructive and demoralizing behavior in the first place. Acting like their seeming neutrality isn't hurting anyone is only adding fuel to the raging inferno. Slugs should be taken on. Slugs should be dealt with. Slugs never did no one no good.
And here's why: Have you ever thought about what a slug does? I hadn't before two days ago. And now I know. What does a slug do? It, Well... It doesn't. A slug, in my highly scientific viewing period, is never really doing anything. What a slug does is spend its days "not" doing. It anti-exists. A slug undoes day after day after day and no one seems to notice. Here is a creature who has by nature recreated itself as descriptive form of speech. One can be a slug or act sluggish. "Henry, will you please stop working so sluggishly?" Slugs so verily embody a negative attribute that we deplore it in others. Why then do we continue to allow the very living emblem of that negative trait to persist?
The slug is a creature who chooses to be willfully uninteresting. To live as a slug is a passive aggressive's paradise. The slug cannot, rather will not fight for anything, its territory, its food, its mates, in the end the lowly slug will not even fight for itself. Its own life will not draw out the slug to defend or attack, in fact, a slug's only line of defense is its own consumate blehness. Because in the end a slug is an unsatisfying foe. What pleasure can we take in vanquishing an enemy whose response to attack is "squish"? Bother it and it simply tenses and tries to make itself smaller, as if to say, "Maybe if I just stop existing you'll leave me alone." At most a slug will pluck up later walk around for a bit and goo in your general area.
Tell me I'm anthropomorphizing. I'm ok with that. They still suck.
And this kind of attitude will not stand with me. I do not cotton to those who sit around and slug themselves to death. At least with the ignoble badger someone somewhere had to say, "Hey! This rodent thing is badgering me! What is this weird thing? Umm. It's a... badger. That's right. A badger." You have to find something to get riled up about. Something to get up off the couch for.
And dear readers, you think about that. And the next time you see a slug, give it the evil eye. Not that it will make the slug any less worthless. But at least it will know how you feel.
posted by A at 9:43 PM
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