Suicidal animals

[ladyofastolat]

What is it with me this weekend? Why does every bird and animal on Vectis feel the need to leap out in front of me? On a trip to West Wight yesterday, I almost squashed a pheasant, a partridge, a baby pigeon, two rabbits, a stoatorweasel, and a red squirrel. This is far too many to be mere coincidence. I think a description of my car has been given out on the Fur and Feather Radio Station. Clearly they know that I'm the sort of person who will do anything I can to avoid hitting said beasties, rather than being one of those drivers who goes, "Yay! Road kill!" and gleefully squashes them. Either I have been chosen for a giant introductory game of chicken ("Baby's First Insane Brush With Death. Ah, how cute! Let's put it in the family album"), or unhappy animals are using me for their suicide attempts/cries for help, knowing that I almost certainly won't really hit them.



I hate squashing anything. Lately, we've had something of a plague of mosquitoes - if you can call it a plague when we're talking about three of the things spread over a week. Maybe a mild under-the-weatherness? Even though they were giving me horrible bites, I refused to contemplate squashing them, and each one got carefully removed with a pint glass. Actually, maybe we only have one mosquito, which got thrown out of one window, and came gleefully back through another, thinking, "Wahay! Suckers!" In which case it wouldn't even be a mild under-the-weatherness of mosquitos, but a... well, a... one.

And then there's the snails... Some evenings, the entire drive and path are crawling with the things, and I come back from dancing and walk to the front door to the sound of crunch, crunch, crunch. I hate that. But what are they all doing? Where do they live the rest of the time? If all the snails that party on our drive on certain evenings all lived under the stones and leaves of our garden... Well, surely there's just not room for them all. I'd say that all the snails of the area are gathering in our drive, and it's their nightclub / Parliament building (depending on whether you see snails are party animals or serious political animals), but the wreckage of squashed snails litters all other drives and roads and paths the following morning, too. Did they float down from the heavens? Did they grow from seeds for one night only? Have they phased into being from another layer of reality, one that is ruled by snails - in which case their arrival in this reality probably counts as a terrible angst-ridden horror novel.

And mice, too... Where do the cats find all these things, because I can never find them? It does tend to support all those fantasy stories about little people/Borrowers/fairies living in our world, unnoticed by us clueless clumsy giants. Not that snails would really work very well in a fantasy novel. "You, young snail, are the Chosen One who must take this tainted lettuce leaf to the fiery chasms of Mordor. It will be a long and terrible journey, lasting many months, and with many dangers on the way." "Why, where is Mordor?" "Oh, about ten feet away."

Anyway, I think I had a point once in this post, but it's long gone.

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I got stung around 6 or 7 times before the age of 11, and the last time I had quite an allergic reaction, so I react rather scared around bees and wasps, just in case. Allergic reactions have a habit of getting worse. Pellinor just sits there and makes like a stone, and they tend to get bored with his lack of encouragement and fly away.

If there is indeed a rift to the World of Snails, it spreads right across the Isle of Wight. Someone on the far side of the island was talking to me yesterday about squashed snails littering her doorstep. Hmm... Maybe that's the downside of living here. We don't get the triffids, but we do get the snail invasion. Maybe it's something to do with the lack of tough and rugged grey squirrels who would show them who's boss.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

There was a front page story in the Western Morning News that the wet weather had produced 36 trillion* snails across the Westcountry.

The number given was quite precise: we wondered who had been given the job of counting them.


* or similar Large Number.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

The wet weather produced them? What, do they grow from raindrops?

Hm... *suddenly realising crashing ignorance of snail reproductive habits.* Hmm... A quick Google on another tab reveals many interesting things. "Hermaphrodite snails can reproduce mutually." No, perhaps best not to ask...

I suspect that the Snail Commandant has told your local paper the exact numbers. Something along the lines of "Tremble, Earthlings, for we come in numbers 36 trillion strong to get crunched under your feet take over your puny planet."

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

I carry an epi pen, after relating to my GP my own, long ago, experiences with insect stings, maybe you should take similar action? EPI is not a cure, but it should give you significantly more time to get to medical care than otherwise.