On 06/10/2012 01:49 PM, Spider wrote:
After a tiring day in the garden yesterday, I went upstairs to prepare
for bed. I pulled my (pretty pink 'Victorian') nightdress from under my
pillow and was about to put it on ...

Eeek! Yuk! There was a slug slowly dehydrating within the folds of
aforementioned nightie :~((! Deeply disgusting .. shudder. I had no
idea that being a gardener would be so traumatic.


Shudder indeed. But it reminds me of a still bright memory from long
ago...

I suppose I would have been around 10, and my older sister, perhaps 18,
was being wooed by her first serious young man, an earnest long-haired
type we referred to as "Bog" although I suppose his name must have been
Bob. He rarely smiled, but was full of poetry; serious-like.

Bog was a conducting student and already a confirmed musician who liked
to cut a figure. For his big performance we all trooped out to see him
lead the orchestra in Wagner's Sigfried Idyll, in the music school's
very rural setting. He was resplendent on the podium in tails -- this
was some time ago -- and baggy, flowing pants to match his flowing hair.

As he tapped his polished baton to bring the orchestra to attention, my
younger sister and I noticed a long, fat, orange slug on the side of his
black patent leather. He must have picked it up having a last nervous
smoke outside before the big moment.

The piece began and the orchestra rose in rapturous melody. (If you've
heard it you know what I mean.) The slug rose too, slowly climbing
through the folds of the unsuspecting Bog's pants. The audience, inured
to student performances, remained stoic. My sister and I tittered more
or less quietly, mostly interested in whether it could reach the
flapping jacket tail, and whether it could hold on if it made it. It
did and could, inspired by motion and music, and maybe (we speculated)
the smell of Bog's sweaty mop.

By the end of the piece it had reached the small of his back and settled
in contentedly. Neither whirling bow nor march off stage dislodged it,
but when he returned it was gone. We imagined it had found a tastier
frond to chew on.

No one ever told Bog, but he did win fair maiden so I suppose it came
out well for him in the end!

-E