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Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Ick


I was sleepily moseying around the house getting ready for work. My eyes were still laden with sleep and I left the lights off, getting around the house by memory and the little bit of light coming through the window from the streetlights.

All of a sudden I felt something cold and rubbery under my bare foot. I stopped in my tracks. The hardwood floor was cold as expected, but whatever I stepped on didn't belong on the floor of my dark office. I turned on the desk lamp, which illuminated the room somewhat, and peered at the floor.

Nothing.

I then looked at the bottom of my foot. A yellowish brown rubbery looking thing the size of my pinky finger was stuck to my foot. I grabbed it with my fingers and pulled it off of my foot, bringing it under the desk light to figure out exactly what the hell I stepped on.

It didn't look like anything that I owned. And it didn't look like anything I had on my desk the night before. It actually looked like a little banana. But it was real sticky. I smelled it, but it didn't smell like anything. I turned it over in my fingers, peering at it real close at all angles. It didn't look like food, either.

On one end, I noticed that there were two little black stalk looking things. What the hell?

Then suddenly it came to me. I had in my hands a dead slug. And the sticky stuff was the slime drying out.

Yuck! I suppressed a gag as a wave of disgust rolled across my body. Not only did I step on a frickin slug, I had the damn thing just inches from my face, trying to figure out what the hell it was. Ugh! Barf!

I suppressed the immediate urge to violently shake the slug off of my hand. (No need to have this thing go flying around the office). I somehow managed to make it over to the trashcan in a calm manner. However, the damn thing wouldn't come off of my fingers and I had to flick it off.

Disgusted, I hobbled across to the bathroom, trying not to put my right foot down on the floor and get that nasty slime everywhere.

I tried to wash the dried sticky slime off of my foot and fingers, but it just got slimier and slimier the more water and soap I used, and it seemed to just embed itself into my skin. I stood there at the sink, washing my hands over and over again like Lady MacBeth. Eventually I resorted to using the back of my fingernails to scrape off the rehydrated slime off of my hands and feet, getting more nauseated and disgusted by the minute.

Where the hell did this dried up piece of crap slug come from? And what the hell is it doing in my office? And how was it still alive in November!

I looked at my watch. I've spent nearly half an hour dealing with this unwelcomed morning surprise. I was going to be late for work.

And what was my excuse? I stepped on a slug?
Yeah, that's going to get a lot of sympathy.
Let's see how many people will actually believe me.