Rogue snail
Dude was bored yesterday evening so I came up with the clever idea that he should make pets out of two snails I found near my office.
We fetched a container and filled it with grass, leaves and some water. We covered it with cling wrap and punched air holes with a fork. Dude sticky taped the plastic.
He named the snails Fred and George, then strenuously denied a link with Harry Potter after Kathleen observed they were the names of twins in one of the boy wizard stories.
Dude’s boredom evaporated as he spent the hours before bedtime giving the snails a guided tour of the house and generally entertaining each other.
This morning we discovered that one of the snails escaped; made a run for freedom in the night.
We think it’s George. We have no idea where he is, except probably in Dude’s bedroom. The other snail also got away, but I found him on top of the coffee maker.
Last time a creature escaped in Dude’s bedroom we found it in the bathroom (a frog) before it got stepped on.
I’m not sure this story will have a happy ending. We’ll just have to wait and see.
I'm a 41-year-old father of four working as a newspaper editor at Mount Gambier in South Australia.
