A random thing happened to me last Thursday. It was around 10pm and I was walking home. It had been raining and I’d decided to stay in Ye Olde Weatherspoons and drink another bottle of Effes beer. The rain stopped after twenty or so minutes and I made my move.
Although walks home at night after a few beers are not uncommon, the mixture of rain, humidity and moisture in the air made sure it was a rather odd journey. I crossed over a road and turned off the main path onto a short cut and then crunch. I knew I’d trodden on something before I heard the sound because of the small resistance I felt as my foot came down. I had stepped on a snail. Crap I thought and scrapped my new pumps (I got these ones by the way) along the ground to clear away any shell debris leftover. Turning left to save me ten minutes meant I’d have to go down an alleyway where the street lamps did not work. I first thought that this was ‘chav’ hunting ground. The ominous signs were there, all street lamps were off, it was dark, the path was an alleyway where anyone could appear from, but I thought sod it and started the 300 (or so) metre walk. It took only a few steps when again there was a crunch sound. I couldn’t be bothered to scrape my shoes and continued but it was not too long until there was another crunch as within a space of a nanosecond I crushed a snail’s home followed by its life. My feet shuffled along a few more steps and with every other I destroyed a snail and its abode. This was getting all too strange so pulled out my key-ring and found my little light and illuminated the alleyway. At first I couldn’t quite understand what was in front of me but as I narrowed my eyes to take a more inquisitive look I noticed hundreds of snails all over the place. The path was absolutely littered with them. There was hardly anywhere I could tread without smashing one of those little fellas into pieces. It seemed there was some sort of a snail convention taking place inviting all the snails within four counties to congregate here down this dodgy dark alleyway. I pulled out my phone to take a photo but it was currently being repaired and the makeshift one doesn’t have a camera.
I still wanted to get home early though and decided to carry on down the alleyway. So with my little light as guidance I began weaving in and out but unfortunately could only pick out the big ones. Crunch, “Ah shit” I said aloud as I started to squash more snails. I even attempted tip-toeing but lost my balance and almost ended up falling to the floor. Getting back to the task in hand I decided that there was no other way to get through but to leg it. There would be more squashing but I wanted to get out quickly. I put the little light away and just ran for it.
It didn’t take long for me to hear that crunching sound, in fact it happened with every step. In the dark I could imagine I was treading on snow. Unfortunately, reality set in when I finally made it through the alleyway and stood underneath a lamp post (that was alight) and saw on my new trainers a plethora of snail shells covering my pumps. When I got back home I took the hose out and washed away all the debris making sure everything had been sprayed off. To help with the cleaning process I even poured half a tube worth of washing up liquid to make sure the job was done. It was a random end to the night but my trainers no longer look new and I hate snails.
In other news, I saw this on the Kiss Channel a couple of weeks ago.
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