A Slug's Life

July 26, 2006

I tortured a slug on Sunday night. In my defense, I don't like slugs, and it was a trespasser on my property. There it was, crawling on down the wall intending to move in and have babies somewhere on my porch.

A friend told me that slugs will commit suicide in beer if you tempt them with the smell of it. So, we put a beer under the slug and watched him crawl towards it.

But, the slug, we'll call him "Slugger", was too smart. He clearly liked the taste of the beer, as he circled around the rim for quite a while, making certain not to miss out on a single taste. My friend actually made the point that slugs must be very good lovers, as they are extremely slow, patient, and thorough in its job.

Anyway, like I said, Slugger was too smart and wouldn't go in the bottle. He came out, and crawled down the bottle...

But realized there was nothing good out there. And so, he went back up for another taste...

But Slugger got bored, and now was slimelly crawling on my table! What was I to do? And so, thinking it would be a quick blow, and the whole nights event would be over with the murder of Slugger (I was only an accomplice), we poured beer ON him.

Slugger became paralyzed on his tail end, began moving slowly, and probably, died a very slow death. I couldn't watch anymore, I felt too guilty for making this such a painful ordeal for the little guy.

Anyway, I'm a little off track here. My point of this whole thing is that I tortured a slug. And now I believe in karma because the next night, while surrounded in citronella candles and an industrial sized bug zapper, I got eaten alive by mosquitos. That's right. Good ol' Slugger sent his woodland creature friends to take me down. I probably have West Nile virus now...you know...because of the karma.

Webster says karma is "the force generated by a person's actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person's next existence."

But I don't know about this whole karma thing anyway. Nice guys finish last right? So wouldn't that mean the bad guys finish first? If karma really did exist, then cheaters would never win, thieves would never have fortune, and the guilty would never get off.

So I have to ask...is this logical? Does "karma" ring true, and if so, shouldn't we be more careful in the things we do on a day to day basis? Maybe I should have kept Slugger as a pet. Maybe I should be more patient, more generous, more helpful and less whatever those opposites are.

What do you think? Is karma only a bitch when you kill a slug?