More Disgusting Nature

Coming back into the house this evening, I saw the number three on one of the framing boards on the porch. It was a dark brown raised number, dully shiny and metallic.

I didn’t think much of it. The porch is littered with brass handles at about that height, as the previous owner of this house was an elderly woman who had a difficult time getting around. No reason there couldn’t be a metal three there, like a house number or something.

Well, it was a little odd, since our house number isn’t three.

Still, I had food in hand, and it was getting dark, and I was hungry, so I was fumbling for keys, and James squawked “Ecck! It’s slugs!”

“What? I thought it was a three!”

“It is! Of slugs!”

I leaned in and looked, and sure enough, the three that had a moment before been as precise and regular as anything stamped from a machine had deformed slightly, and was wandering off. It was a pair of large leopard slugs.

We considered this.

“Maybe they’re letting the other slugs know that there’s three of us–you, me, and the cat–so they know how many to kill.”

We agreed that this was the most likely scenario and went inside to eat and await the arrival of our gastropod executioners. Remember me fondly.

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