sneaky suckers

This post is about snails. I live in a small flat in London, and am blessed with an even smaller deck out the back-- it's just big enough for about five planters stuffed with flowering plants. I'm a wilderness girl in the city for the time being, as my anthropology department is smack dab in the centre of the big smoke. Because of this, my plants are the light of my universe for now. I have few friends in town (they aren't kidding when they say the life of a PhD student is one spent alone), and although I haven't named my plants yet, I do love love love them.
But as I said, this post is about snails. The little suckers climb up the brick wall from outside my deck, sneak into my planters, and devour everything pink. I have been spending about 30mintues every day picking them off plants and tossing them back from whence they came. My routine has changed somewhat now, however, thanks to an episode with a particular snail two days ago. After removing three or so quarter sized individuals from their lunch, I returned inside to finish my novel (Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro, pretty good). About an hour later, I glanced out the window in the back door to see a snail inching its way up the outside of one of my planters. Shaking my head, why won't they just leave us alone, I thought, I went outside to reprimand the newby. Picking him off the planter, however, I noticed that his shell was cracked, and it was missing a big old chunk. You little fucker (I said this out loud, smiling, sort of). It one of the same damn snails I had just tossed out. I admit it; hucking snails as far as I can over the far brick wall of the building feels pretty damn good. Do birds like escargot?
See how you like THEM pidgeons, Slick.
And stay out of my primroses.

BISA's for today:

'a strange new combination of the things we've handed down' (m.cohn)
'farewell to the old me' (dar)
'the beauty of the rain, is how it falls' (dar)
'you are what you read' (y.g.m.)
'my friend who cares about me, but who doesn't give what i need and doesn't need what i give...'