Bucket
bucket
Body count tonight: 57. I remembered just before going to bed that the snails would be out in force since it rained a little today. I grabbed a flashlight and my snail masher from behind the front door. It consists of an old cut off flagstaff with a 2 x 2 block attached at the end. The grandkids use it when they visit and earn 5 cents per snail killed.
I don’t understand why snails come out from their leafy protection and crawl around exposed on pavement and pavers. I actual feel guilty murdering helpless snail after snail. You really can’t call the exercise “snail hunting” because that would indicate that some sort of sport would be involved. Perhaps, if you were a snail hunter, you shouldn’t be able to kill a snail unless it is in flight. LaVille said that she’s seen snails take flight. She and her siblings would visit an aunt in Salinas and collect snails and then return home to Calexico where they would place them on hot pavement to see how high they could fly. Perhaps snail hunting should be restricted from ½ hour after sunset to ½ hour before sunrise. Snail hunting season would be limited to the winter months. You wouldn’t want to kill snails during their breeding season. Of course no artificial light source could be used. To make the sport more fair to the snail, size of the snail masher could limited to a ¼ inch diameter rod. Naturally no snail with a shell diameter less than 1 inch could be harmed. Chemical products of any sort would be outlawed.
I’m considering starting a club called “Snails Unlimited”. Would you like to join me in protecting the lives of these helpless mollusks. Let’s ensure that the sport of snail hunting is available to be enjoyed by future generations.
Stan, The Snail Killer
P.S. LaVille suggested an addendum was needed here:
When we had rounded up a significant collection of these hermaphroditic herbivores, LaVille would take them into her classroom and distribute them in small paper bags as pets to her students for responsibility training (for the kids). Then periodically she would hold races on the overhead projector by placing these snails in the center to see which sprinter could reach the periphery first.
I have to caution you however: Do not store your collection of snails in a paper bag. They will eat their way out and you will find estivating snails all over the house for weeks. Trust me