This week has been terrible. The political scene is awful, there have been too many shootings (meaning “greater than none”), I have member of my family who are unwell and unlikely to get better, the owner of my favorite soccer team died in a helicopter crash…there just hasn’t been much to talk about that isn’t either sad or outrageous.
But…when we were cleaning out our storage room at the apartment, we decided to toss the old 10 gallon snail tank. It had been empty for about 6 months, but there were still bit of dirt and snail poop in it. When I was about to toss it into the chute, I found a tiny snail shell that had been lodged in a crevasse. It felt thin and dry and very worrying.
So, I took the shell back to our apartment, but the shell in a little ramekin, and added a little bit of water because you just never know with snails. They’re tougher than you’d think sometimes. And, wouldn’t you know it, the little gastropod came right out:
I felt better about this one little fighter’s survival than I have about anything I’ve done at work in years. I don’t know what that means, but I’m just grinning ear to ear over this snail. Most of the lettuce leaf got monched and they’ve joined the other snails in the big tank for what we hope will be a long and happy life, inasmuch as the term “happy” applies to snails (and I like to think that it does).
In other snail-related news, we’re having a pets-in-costumes contest at the office this week. There aren’t many off-the-rack snail costumes out there, so my limited crafting abilities were put to the test. Plus, getting a snail to pose for a photo isn’t a sure thing, but fortunately, Baby Blink was up to the task:
I’m reasonably sure we won’t win the contest, but a lot of people got to see our lovely Blink being a show off and I’m happy enough with that.
Snails are such good little critters. They don’t harm anyone, they get along with each other, and there’s something very peaceful about the slow pace at which they live. When people can’t be bothered to be decent to each other, and when horrible things are happening to people you care about, spending a little time with snails takes some of the edge off.
-RK