If I thought I could do it faster, I’d be setting myself up for heartbreak. But at my age everything starts to take a little bit longer. You expect that. Allow for it. I am smarter than I look.
You’ve no doubt heard of how molasses moves slowly in January? Well let me tell you, those were my salad days. Nowadays, I feel like molasses moving in January if it were 200 degrees below zero that month.
I’ve become a real clock-watcher. Don’t we all in the December of our years?
It’s a hard life, being a slug. Snails too, all of us who move about as quickly as the grass that deafens us with its growing.
For me it used to be easy: ten feet in seven minutes flat. 6:50 on a slick, wet morning. Now, geez, I’m lucky if I can do ten feet in under ten minutes. In my declining years – slugs don’t live forever either – I try my best to stay in shape. Eat healthy, get lots of sleep. Try to keep my body together as best as possible.
My daily regimen includes sliding. You’ve caught me doing my lap. Well, not a lap. I don’t start, come back to, and stop at the same place. In the slug world, we simply ooze from point A to point B. Ten feet. That’s our universal slug world tape measure.
I’ve got just another inch to go, and only twenty seconds to do it. Don’t laugh.
Damn. That took 10:01. That’s my worst time yet. But, as I say, we’re all headed that way, and I accept that. From the bright shining slime trail of our youth, to the dull, patchy goo-blobs of old age.
Forgive me, I need a power nap now. Tomorrow I’ll try to do it in 10 minutes again. Even though it’ll probably be 10:02 or longer. We all hold out hope, even though we know it’ll take longer each day, until that last, longest day comes. Or you’re run over by a car, whichever comes first.
Lanning Lee 