Thursday, July 16, 2009

LOCAL SLUG POPULATION DECIMATED!

The beautiful May weather was contrasted by the wettest June since the records started, as evidenced by the flooding Danube, or Dunaj, as my Slovak neighbours call it. July has been witness to frequent bursts of intense rain as well.

They don't have earth worms here. Not that I have seen anyways. Just snails and slugs, which on average seem to be about 3 inches long. They drag themselves across the sidewalks at an excruciatingly slow pace leaving a trail of "slug goo" likened to contrails in the sky. It makes for exceptionally nasty sidewalks as the locals don't seem to have much regard for the friendly, albeit gross looking Gastropods. I do my best to avoid crushing them but mainly for the sake of my shoes. Nevertheless most damp mornings a veritable slug genocide occurs.

On an equally atrocious note, the drainage and sewer systems in this city are "Communist as hell" if you know what I mean. All too often I am strolling to a bus stop, or the local gas station dodging the remains of half squished slugs, when I am punched in the olfactory glands by the pungent odor of fermenting sewage. I feel a little obtuse, for the number of times I've seen construction workers taking long slow pulls form vodka bottles should have better alerted me that the manual labour here is bereft of any real quality control standards.

At least I don't live in Toronto.

1 comment:

  1. Toronto. Filth.

    I'm going down this Saturday for that Jays game. I'm bringing a mask.

    ReplyDelete