Upon returning home from New York at 7am last wednesday, I should have been delighted to note that there had been no slug incursions in my absence, thereby proving my counter-measures to be wholly successful. If I'd really meant business, I would have coined a catchphrase, such as "slug free since 08/03". But alas, there had been an even more determined intruder than the pernicious garden slug.
When I forced my way past the pile of exciting mail (including: tax disc! Undelivered item notice! Pizza menu!) I witnessed a scene of devestation roughly equivalent to that following a middle-range earthquake. Pictures askew. Unexplained dirt everywhere (the kind that houses hide). Lampshade at a jaunty angle. This can only mean one thing, namely that a bird has flown down the chimney and commited acts of terror on my home.
Now, I don't know about you, but my first thought upon getting into trouble is not to defecate everywhere. That seems to me to be compounding the problem. Not so Mr Bird, who had spattered every available surface with yesterday's brunch. So now, when all my shaking body wanted to do was sleep, I had to try to find this miscreant in my home. The thought of going to sleep only to be awoken by talons raking my face (inevitable, I figured) did not appeal. After two hours of spirited effluvia removal, I gave up and collapsed.
(A note: OF COURSE I cleaned my house before I went away. So that burglars would not think the worst of me).
Later on, i found its sad little body behind a curtain in the spare room. I suppose a true blogger would have taken a photo of this, put it at the top of the post, and reminded us all of the pathos of life and death. Wheels within wheels. I just shoved the (thankfully cohesive) corpse into a shoebox and threw it in the bin. All the while, obviously, praying it would not come back to life in a damaged, screaming way. I don't mind admitting that I poked it with a stick a few times first.
Thank goodness for sticks. Thank goodness for shoeboxes! Thank goodness for Cif cream cleaner. Thank
goodness.