Remember when you were a child growing up there was always some neighbor kid who liked to sprinkle slugs with salt and watch them shrivel up and die? This was probably the same kid who fried earthworms with a magnifying glass just for the fun of it. You and your parents would wonder what was wrong with the kid, why was he (sorry, but it was usually a “he”) so violent, and should he be in therapy, etc.

Yeah, well, I totally did that this morning, the salt sprinkling shriveling slug thing, that is.

I’ve never liked slugs. The first time I saw one it was after a rain and it was on the ladder to my treehouse. It was gross and slimy and scared me so much that I didn’t go back to my treehouse for days for fear that it was still there, hanging around. To be fair this was a huge, mammoth sized slug, not one of these little snail-like creatures. It was like 3 inches long, no kidding.

So when I noticed last week there there were some holes in my beloved Brussels Sprouts, I had a good idea of who the culprit might be. There weren’t a ton of holes or anything, so I didn’t panic, but decided instead to keep an eye out.

Sure enough, yesterday the boys and I were harvesting the last of our carrots and preparing that space in our garden for the garlic that we’ll be planting soon. In doing so we unearthed at least six gross, disgusting slugs. Do you know they do actually leave a TRAIL OF SLIME behind them as they crawl? Well, they do; repulsive creatures. And I was not happy about them spooging their slime on our beautifully prepared garden bed, or leaving more holes in my Sprouts, so I decided to grab them all up, allow Sam to chastise them (”Stay out of our garden you slugs!”), and Robby to “shoot fire” at them (basically he holds out his hand and makes a loud hissing sound while yelling “shooooot fiyaaaaah!”) and then I chucked them as far as I could into a nearby evergreen.

I emailed my parents though to find out what to do about the others, those that were hiding out and waiting to come out again and eat my salad greens. My mom sent me a link to this site, which discusses slugs as though they are an adversary in a war, which oddly enough does not feel that far off right now. I have yet to employ the methods mentioned, but will probably do so this afternoon, mixing up a concoction of yeast, honey and water in which they will drown and perish.

I did run out this morning though, dish of salt in hand, to see if any were still milling about from their sunrise pillaging, and sure enough found one repulsive, mucousy thing slinking around. I salted him. That’s right, I did. I sprinkled him until he shriveled. And I won’t say I specifically enjoyed it or anything, but I didn’t feel very bad either.

Now, I know PETA is going to come over here and provide me some links to some sort of humane slug trappers or something like they did when I waged war on the mice in my utensil drawer. The problem is, PETA, they’re going for my Brussels Sprouts, which were so lovely up until a few days ago and easily the thing I was most excited about in my garden. Like the mosquitoes Sam and I were discussing this morning, the list of redeeming qualities for the slug is quite short, and possibly non-existent. Plus letting them live just means they’re going to produce more slugs, which will then organize to come back full-force to attack my garden.

And they’re gross. Not to mention, I hate them. Perhaps I need some therapy.