Snail suicide wall of DOOM!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The building I work in has a rather nice area up front. It is a pretty shaded area with some grass, a bunch of big old trees (the shade) and a couple tables. It also has a fountain/pond that is no longer filled with water. It’s Vegas so the empty pond makes sense.

I go down there for my breaks every day. For the past two or three weeks I’ve been slightly puzzled and dismayed because there is apparently a snail suicide cult that has decided the cement wall that makes up one side of the pond area is a perfect place to sun themselves to death.

When I go down there I usually find 10 + snails on the wall. I also usually find 4 or 5 dead snails at the foot of the wall. I also usually find 4 or 5 snails headed to the wall. At first I thought that they were just trying to get over the wall for some reason. That didn’t make much sense because the pool is empty, but I figured ‘Hey, they’re snails, it’s not like they can see the other side.’’ Except they never get past the top. They never go down the other side, some make it up but go no further. My next thought was that they were attracted to the wall because the snails might somehow be leeching water or something out of the wall. I discarded this idea rather quickly because a) it’s dumb and b) the pond has been empty for at least 4 years.

So, I came to the only conclusion rational left. There is a snail suicide cult thriving* in the break area where I work. They head to the sunlight to die a glorious death. Or they could just be dumb.

Slee

*Sooner or later, of course, the cult will end.

2

My garage has had at least a hundred of these every day this week. I’ve been wondering why they do that. I guess May is when the snail flowers bloom.

3

I may or may not have shared this on the boards before, but this seems like an appropriate spot.

I have a secret identity.

I am a Slug Goddess.

No, really. Remember the “Rain God” out of Douglas Adams? He was a rain god because the rain clouds just loved him and followed him around and wanted to shower him with their rainy goodness? Well, slugs love me. They want to follow me around. They want to gift me with their little silvery slug trails all up and down the hallway, and eat my mail, and sleep on my pillow (that last one, I must say, is not always good for a slug’s health. Ever wake up at three a.m. with the remains of a squished slug wriggling in its death throes between your cheek and the pillow? You haven’t lived…)

On one particular occasion, we woke one morning to find every circuit breaker in the house thrown. Not what one would immediately flag as a slug-related occurrence (even in my house) - but read on…

After much flicking of switches and plugging and unplugging appliances, we narrowed the problem down to one particular wall outlet, which caused the circuit breakers to flip every time something was plugged into it - and also had a strange gunpowdery smell coming from it. Carefully, the plug was unscrewed. Inside we found a single slug, stretched between Earth and Live, and very, very dead.

And you know what this means, don’t you?

The slugs had been sacrificing to their goddess!

(We could think of no way to test whether or not a slug was a virgin. )

I think the inference is fairly obvious here.

Clearly, somebody in your office is a Snail Goddess, or some other variety of Mollusc Deity. You should check for anyone with suspicious silvery trails on their shoes.

4

Obligatory lolsnail pic.

5

You’ve been witnessing a snail stampede.

They tend to take a while to get going.

6

Sometimes when I deliver papers in wet weather, I notice that certain garage doors in the neighborhood have earthworms crawling on them. Nice neighborhood, pretty white garage doors no doubt power-washed just a few weeks ago to keep them spanking clean, and there will be 10 or 15 worms working their way toward the top in a really slow, weird race.

There may be some sort of revolution going on. We’ll just have to bide our time, I suppose. Luckily a good garden hose will probably stop it in its slimy tracks.

7

It’s pretty obvious why they’re climbing the wall -

Because it’s there

8

You have to see this from a snail-speed point of view. The snails are having a hill climb competition. You saw the ones who failed and fell off. You didn’t see the ones at the top of the wall, cheering and jeering at their rivals. You didn’t see the one at the bottom with a stopwatch and a clipboard. :wink:

9

As I was reading your post I heard this “dundunDUNNNNNNNNN!” in my head at that line. :smiley: It made me giggle.

10

Q: What do you get when you cross a slug with a lemming?

A: A lot of rotting, smelly shells at the bottom of Sleestak’s wall…