ATACK !!!

  The world has become too complacent for its own good. Surprise. There may be more than one area where this is true, but I can only point at the falling sky in one place at a time. Right now it is your lawn and garden. You are in grave danger from a sneak attack.

   In the past I may have outraged some of the ancestors of the new enemy. Once I even fantasized about a revenge attack from them but I thought it was all impossible until a few days ago. They have come to deliver a nightmare. Probably in violation of the Geneva Convention or some other set of regulations the foe has attacked someone very close to me. I could have tolerated a similar onslaught against me but it is clearly against the rules of feuding to take it outside of the families involved.

   All I can do, aside from intensifying my efforts, is to warn you. Perhaps in doing so I can enlist your aid in trying to wipe out the whole slimy lot of the bad guys, along with fire ants, cockroaches and mice. This is our target.

    If I polled any group of people as to whether these things bite, my result would lean heavily toward laughter at even the thought of the possibility. Guess who is having the last laugh. In fact, they can kill a dog with one bite. They can make humans quite uncomfortable. Given a few hours, they can sneak up on you and wreak havoc.

   These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now … no, wait .. that one was used up back in 1776, but you get the idea. We must join together and face down evil

   Before you enter the fray you must, like me, fortify your home and property against the certain counter-attack. I’m building a six inch high copper wall around the whole place. Inside that will be a six inch deep beer moat. The latter may require my hiring a security guard to control other types of pests but it will be worth it to know my family is safe.

   I warned you about your pets. To be a little more specific, some slugs carry lungworms which may enter your dog’s body though the wound and make him stop wagging his tail … forever. They too must be protected. I wash mine down in salt water every day now. While salt does not necessarily kill slugs they do avoid it. The dog is not much fonder of the new procedure, but he hasn’t bitten anyone I like yet and I’d rather face him down than a slug.  One of those has bitten someone I like. Here is pictorial proof.

 

  

                                  

   How far this war may escalate, I’m not sure. The slug, along with its cousin the snail (which also bites) is a gastropod mollusk. That puts them in cahoots with clams, oysters, mussels and such. Proactively I am going to increase the frequency of appearance of those guys on my dinner table, and not as guests. Escargot is another story. I’ll leave that to the French and the idiots, which may or may not be distinctive groups.

   Aside from moving to the Sahara or Arizona you are going to have a hard time ignoring this one. There are places that do not have slugs and those that do not have snails. Those that have neither have cactus, poisonous snakes or, worse yet, camels. They will soon be full of refugees from this conflagration too.

   For the rest of the story, you’ll have to wait for the end of this conflict. History will be interpreted, as always, by the victors. Whether this one will be written in ink or slime remains to be determined.