Slugs Are Not Pets

Tags

bugs, gross things, pets, slugs, slugs are not pets, the pirate princess

My daughter attempted to adopt a baby slug as a pet yesterday. Let that one sink in for a minute and then we’ll continue.

You ready? Good. It was a lovely, if slightly chilly, morning, so we all went over to my sister’s back yard to have a run around. The kids were outside, having a grand old time, and honestly, we weren’t paying too much attention to their comings and goings. That is, until my sister noticed the Pirate Princess skulking around the bathroom door, with her hands hidden behind her back. Apparently, she had come from the direction of the living room, not the back door, which is what caught my sister’s attention. She stopped and asked the Pirate Princess what was in her hand. There was something weird and brown and a little shiny kinda between her fingers, almost as if she had gotten into the candy and squished something in her hand.

I hear the conversation between the two of them and got up to investigate. Looking at the little white hand, I had the same thought about the weird thing on her hand. Until it moved. Ugh. Grabbing her hand, I looked more closely at it, and realized the shiny brown thing was a teeny little baby slug. Ack! Gross! This nasty thing was on my baby! I rushed her out to the back door, but the thing fell off right as the Husband was taking her outside for me. He squashed it in a napkin and threw the offending bug away. Then, the real questioning began.

Me: “Where did you get that thing?”
Her: “I was trying to wash it off because it was a yucky bug.”
Me: “Yes, it was yucky, but where did you get it?”
Her: “It was a bad buggy, and I didn’t like him.”
Me: “But where did you get it?! Did you find it outside?”
Her: “That buggy was so bad and so yucky. That’s why I wanted to wash it off.”

It went on like this for a couple of minutes before we finally gave up, washed the nasty slug slime off her hand, and sent her outside. A little while later, while the Husband was in the backyard talking to her, he managed to get the real story out of her. You see, she found the poor (gross) thing outside and decided that it would make a nice pet, so she scooped it up and brought it in with her. She made it into the playroom before it started to slime up her finger and she realized why slugs make such a poor choice for pets. This is when she attempted to quietly get into the powder room and rinse it down the drain, which is where she was when my sister found her.

The moral of this story? Slugs are bugs, not pets. We made her repeat this mantra to us several times in the hopes it sticking in her little brain and preventing her from ever attempting it again. Honestly, had I not been so freaked out, I would have stopped to snap a picture and post it with Instragram (for Android!), but I was so grossed out by the whole idea of a slug (one of my absolutely least favorite things in the world) being actually ON my child that I panicked instead. I guess I’m still a little new to this daily blogging thing (despite having had a blog of some kind or other on and off since before they were called blogs) and the mommy in me won out. Oh well. Here’s hoping I never have another opportunity to capture that image again.