My job (one of my jobs) requires me to cycle for about forty minutes down a thin little path to the university. Despite the rain, despite the early hour required, despite the large highway right next to it, this would be lovely, I think, except that it's Autumn in the UK. And Autumn in the UK is
slug season.
They're everywhere. Brown-grey. Green-yellow. Black-brown. Blue-white. Every colour, every kind of slugs. All over the bike path. This dampens the cycling experience twice over:
Firstly, because I can't help but agree a little bit with J. K. Rowling's in-Potter hypothesis that an important part of a person, a part of their soul or essence or humanness or whatever you want to call it, dies when they kill something else. Any kind of killing, be it bug, bee or slug, feels intrisically wrong and I don't like to do it.
Secondly, because of the sound. The sound of a slug being crushed by a bicycle tyre. First the gentle smoosh, then the louder-than-you'd-think pop as the outsides let the insides out. Over and over again, this sound. My getting-to-work soundtrack.
I'm looking forward to winter. (Although that means it's almost snail season....)
4 comments:
Oh, Emma. I thought earthworms were bad, but now I know they're really not. I feel for you!
I hope you have fenders to keep the slug guts from splashing up on to you!
In Calgary, during the months that it's warm enough to ride outside with shorts on, we get goose poop (which is about the size of slugs, I think) on certain parts of the bike path. So, I feel that I can imagine what it is like to ride over slugs - except that I don't feel guilty, I just feel gross.
Oh, ugh. That's more horrible than snow in your face, even.
Oh Bub the slug, oh Bub the slug, why are you flat as a rug?
*gross*
so yeah, that's pretty gross.. I don't really know what you can do about that except maybe putting salt on your tyres, to put them off sliding right under your tyres again... (meh)?
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