So, I go to work and I'm watering my plants because that's what you do with plants and I notice this THING on one of the stems of said plants. I furl my brow, bend over for a closer look, scratch my head.
I don't know what THAT is.
It is not one of those fungi growing in our yard at home, as described in the previous blog. It's small and kind of looks like a rock stuck to the stem. I call one of my coworkers over and ask her what the hell THAT thing is. She laughs and says....
....It's a snail!
That's right. It's a SNAIL.
For pete's sake, how the hell did I get a SNAIL on an indoor plant in my office? It's not like I have a window that opens or that my plant walked outside on smoke break.
She grabs the thing and holds it in my face. I'm not really amused but I am drawn to looking at it, just like watching a train wreck....I want to turn away but I can't. It dawns on me that last week I was thinking about this hole in one of the leaves on this particular plant and I remember thinking, "hey, that looks like those snail holes on our hostas at home," but I really didn't think about what I was thinking and never actually thought there might be an uninvited snail in my office.
I am wondering: are snails like mice? Meaning, where there is one mouse, there is an entire FAMILY of mice.....are there more snails to be had? Do they run in packs? Where did that snail think it was going anyways? Obviously, the snail came with the plant. Since it was a gift, I immediately talk to one of the persons who sent it to me, who just happens to be the person who ripped that sluggy buggy right off the stalk. She smiles and says it's a pet and they paid extra for it. I am not amused.
I quickly contact the wife, as I know she will appreciate my problem. What does she do? She bursts into laughter.
What kind of empathy is this? For god sake, I have a snail infiltration!
She can't stop laughing. I have really lousy luck with plants. I just threw out more plants after they were overrun with disgusting bugs. (Trust me, I tried to kill the bugs. I left the plants out in a storm in an effort to drown the bugs. I sprayed horrifically-bad smelling crap all over the bug plants. ) My plants wilt, die, get bugs, fall over, get uglier by the minute...and, now they get snails. Since the wife has no empathy, I hang up on her.
Instead of continued whining, I decide to look up information on snails. That's why they invented the internet, right?
I learn something most interesting: Most land snails and slugs (aka gastropods) possess both male and female parts. Wow! Who woulda thunk it?
(I probably would have known this if I hadn't been drunk the entire time I was in Zoology.)
As the backyardnature.net website indicates, "In some species, an individual [snail] may behave as male for a while, then as a female. When snails mate...two individuals pull up next to one another, arrange themselves so that the male part of one is opposite the female part of the other, and then each ejects male sperm into the female opening of the other. In a few snail and slug species, self-fertilization occurs -- an hermaphroditic individual mates with itself and produces offspring."
Wow again! I am SO going to embrace my inner snailness.
I decide I will focus on this tasty tidbit instead of lamenting over the mucous-y, shelled part of the slug in my plant. I have also decided that if I find another snail I am taking it to the florist the plant came from and I'm putting it on their counter and I'm going to say VERY loudly that the plant they sent me has snails and that I would appreciate if they kept their gastropods to themselves.
Maybe I'll get a free plant out of it....or, maybe they'll just give me another snail to keep my self-fertalizing pal company....
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