Freedom

Wanna know the best part about being on blogging hiatus? People kinda forget about you for a bit and so you can have complete blogging freedom for a couple of posts. I admit that I've been a bit lax on the posting thing, sorry to my two or three LOYAL readers, but it makes it oh so much fun to come back! I can write about anything my little heart wants to. Like...Gold Bond powder or my children's lack of manners or hot flashes or even slugs. Hmm... I think I'll go with slugs this time. Should be interesting - here we go!

About a week ago Ian, the 6 year old, heard that his much cooler, much more outdoor-sy cousin likes to collect bugs. Because he is striving to become his cousin's clone, he decided that it would be his new passion in life to collect bugs. Only one problem - Ian doesn't like bugs. If I'm being honest, they kind give him the heebie-jeebies. That's okay, though, because he can talk a big game and then just pretend to collect bugs, right? Right. So we gave him a jar. Then Abbey, the 4 year old, decided that she needed to catch 'Jimmy Cricket' so that he can be her conscience. She was very determined, in fact. She dug in the dirt and slung mud on the house (which is still there, btw.) but didn't find Jimmy. So I went out with her and decided to pull some weeds while we were looking JACKPOT!!! I hit the mother-load! No crickets, but I did find a whole snail colony! Actually they were slugs because they didn't have shells, but who cares? We actually caught something - woohoo! So we got the jar and put a lid on it and even punched some holes in the lid to make sure that there was air for them to breathe, poor babies. We made sure to call Aunt Crystal and ask her what slugs ate (she said grass, for those who want to know) and we loaded the jar up with some succulent clippings from the front yard. It was beautiful. We proudly displayed the jar on the kitchen counter and watched the little darlings as they slimed their way up to the top of the jar. "Probably just want to get a breath of fresh air", I thought. We were proud pet owners for a couple of days - an entire weekend, in fact. Until I came home from Vegas and saw this.

See, while I was being all nice and letting the poor things BREATHE they were thinking. (did you know that slugs can think? me either, until now.) They were planning their escape. They slowly inched their way up to the top of the jar and silently slid out of the top and down the side. I have no idea how many escapees we had over the weekend, I don't want to know. Alls I know is that I immediately took the jar outside and placed it on the patio table. After I snapped a few pictures for posterity. I figured that if they wanted their freedom so much they could slide right out of the jar, onto the table and then down to the sidewalk. If they went real fast they could make it to the dirt pile by morning. Sadly, there were just little shriveled pieces of goo on the concrete this morning. We buried the dead and set the survivors free... a moment of silence would be appreciated.