Slugs

At night, it's not uncommon to see a slug along one of the baseboards in my kitchen. I don't think I've ever seen more than one, but it's not always the same slug because sometimes I'll see a really little one and sometimes I see a big one. I guess they have a rotation set up. I don't know exactly where they're coming in, or why, but it might have to do with my trash can? I haven't really investigated too thoroughly.

The annoying things about slugs is that I can't kill them like other pests. If I see a spider, I step on it. If I see a wasp, I spray it from as far away as possible. If I see a mouse, I put out a trap. But what do I do with a slug? Sometimes I just throw them outside, which probably does more to frustrate the slug than it does to deter him. (I say "him", but that's not really accurate. Turns out, slugs are either hermaphrodites or females, depending on whether they've ever had their penises gnawed off.) I've heard you can set out a slug trap bated with beer, but when I tried last summer, I caught a grand total of zero slugs. I would try it again out of desperation, but we don't really drink beer, so I'd have to go to a liquor store 8 months pregnant to get a Pabst (I'm assuming slugs aren't beer connoisseurs). Plus, I don't like the idea of leaving beer out in the yard with my dog as I don't know whether she is genetically predisposed to alcoholism.

This morning when I went outside to feed my dog, there was a huge slug on the side of the house, along with two big slugs on the outer rim of my dog's food bowl. I already have an outer pan of water that the dog's food bowl sits in, but the slugs were so long and adhesive, they'd managed to cross the moat. This was the final straw. I used a stick to gather the slugs together, then went looking for the Morten girl. As soon as that salt hit the slugs, they immediately recoiled to about a third of their size. I guess this is the worst thing you can do to a slug. When I got home, they hadn't moved from their original locations, so it looked like some sort of slimy slug death camp right there on my back deck. I left the slugs where they'd died just to serve as an example to the others, but I'm not sure slugs have attained the sort of cognitive abilities required to appreciate the weight of the threat against them. I'll just have to wait and see.