Snails

So the funny story is this:

I came home at lunch last Tuesday - Board meeting day so I actually made it home for a slightly extended mid-day break. J. was home and assured me 'oh, no, no snails out there. Not a one'. So I meander out to my garden - double check the pots on the patio. All is well. Plants looking healthy and growing already. Leaves unfurling. One teeny tomato already visible (sorry Mr. Organized Crime - I have no tips to offer. The tomato was apparently well in the works BEFORE I ever planted the plant - but I'll take full credit. Though it may well be the only tomato I ever get off the plant - stay tuned!). Things were good. I went across the grass to the squash plants - currently the only plants in the ground - we are debating raised beds or not and that will be largely determined by the snail issue.

And 'lo and behold - there's a LEAF missing...and slime all over the other leaves. Those sneaky snails....and my husband who apparently thought the leaf with HOLES IN IT and SLIME ALL OVER IT was the 'normal' way squash looks?? (Yet another example of the male gender suffering from a serious inability to notice ANY DETAILS WHATSOEVER....no offense to non-family males). He said 'well it must have just happened' and I resisted the urge to yell 'there is no snail anywhere near those plants at the moment AND THEY ARE SNAILS, J. . THEY DON'T MOVE AT LIGHTENING SPEED. THEY WERE EATING THE PLANTS THIS MORNING WHEN YOU ASSURED ME THERE WERE NO SNAILS ON OR NEAR THE PLANTS'. I didn't say it - but I sure thought it!!

So I take action. Head into the house to get a beer and pour it in a pie tin - I've heard the beer attracts the snails and then they die. Presumably 'happy' from a once-in-a-lifetime beer buzz - but they die.

I'm in the garage looking everywhere for the case of Corona we've had FOREVER. Or at least we did have it forever before we apparently took it to a party - New Years, probably. After many minutes of torturing myself trying to figure out where the beer in the garage WAS, I motion to J. and he 'hand signals' (he is on a conference call by this time) that we took it to a party. Don't ask me how he 'signed' that to me - but he was able to confirm via nods, etc. that there was no beer in the garage anymore and tells me to check the fridge. I find one lone cold Corona in the fridge....and not a single aluminum pie plate in sight. At least not where I could see - the cupboard where the baking things are stored is underneath the ovens - and it's so 'full' of stuff, the only way to really see into the cupboard is to sit - and I can't do that or I'll never be able to get up. So I find a clear class Pyrex pie 'tin' near the front of the cupboard and use that.

Only I don't think to open the beer and carry the open beer bottle and the pie plate outside and THEN pour the beer. NO, I pour the beer FIRST into the pie pan...and then walk, oh-so-carefully through the kitchen, down two steps into the family room, across the family room, open the sliding door and take the pie plate full of beer outside - in work clothes. PRAYING the entire way (well, praying and saying to myself 'you are such a twit, Majah....') that I don't end up spilling the beer all over myself. 'Cuz I can't go back to work, back to my office and to a Board meeting smelling like beer!

Thankfully, I managed - didn't spill a drop. And resisted the urge to take a wee sip from the bottle as I poured the last of it into the pie tin. Oh, how I wanted to....but working in education and drinking at lunch do not 'mix'. That is a 'no'.

The beer hasn't done a damn thing. Not a single slug/snail has gone anywhere near it. So I'll be returning the pie plate sans beer (and thoroughly washed and sterilized in the dishwasher) back to the cupboard shortly.

Next up - the potluck story. Or 'the third time in 5 days I was ready to kill my husband'. Told this story at my Lions meeting and people were laughing so hard, they were crying. It is funny now.....