Sunday, May 23, 2010

Spring cleaning means making a clean getaway!

Mrs. Slug enjoys a clean home. She likes to have the dishes done, the lettuce put away and the coats hung up neatly in the closet.  Mr. Slug is also a rather fastidious slug who prefers a sense of order to his castle. All of his electric tools for keeping his steel belly sliding plates in good order are out in the garage, hung on special hooks to keep them dry and in working condition, where he can find them easily without asking his wife where she saw them last.  "Honey, where is my Phillips Sluggydriver?" Mr. Slug will ask as the weather begins to improve at Slug's Rest. "In the garage, on the hook where I shall hang you next time you ask me that question," replies Mrs. Slug while busily attending to removing the cobwebs from the ceiling by sliding up the wall with her tail curled around a damp towel.
Mrs. Slug was watching television one night after one of these cleaning sprees with her beloved Mr. Slug. Watching the widescreen is a rare treat indeed since the two slugs prefer to read books, or, as Mr. Slug says, "Nibble the Tomes" instead of enduring five commercials for every three minutes of programming.  The slugs were watching Mr. Slug's preferred opiate, a show called NCIS, one of those fast action crime solver type shows with fashionably dressed agents teasing each other over a gruesome crime scene, when they cut to a commercial advertising a new and improved type of vaccuum cleaner with all of the bells and whistles. Mrs. Slug exclaimed, "OOOh! I need one of those! It comes with a lettuce-back guarantee! Let's call now!"
Mr. Slug unpeeled himself from the couch, did as he was bade and ordered a new "Carpet Shark" at once.
Yesterday, a large truck pulled up the driveway at Slug's Rest, and out came a box that said, "Fragile, handle with care, this side up."  The driver left it on the porch and ran back to his truck without ringing the doorbell or getting a signature for the giant parcel. "Hmmm, that is odd," said Mr. Slug.  The two slugs slid over to the box cautiously, as there was a banging sound coming from it.  As they moved closer to the box, there was an unmistakeable humming noise which sounded like a small tornado. Mr. Slug put his ear to the box, wiggling his optic tentacles curiously.
"Hand me the exacto knife." He said.  Mrs. Slug replied nervously, "Are you sure we shouldn't call for a backup?"  Mr. Slug shrugged his mantle and said, "I guess we should have some extra muscle in case this thing turns out to be more than we can handle."
Mr. Slug called a few friends over and they all gathered round the behemoth box while Mr. Slug began his surgery.  Mr. Slug had made the first cut and then a curious thing happened. The box began to sway and vibrate in a violent fashion! The humming turned to a roar as a brand new, sleek and dangerous vaccuum cleaner reared up and exited the box like a bolt of lighting! It jumped out of the box and began to suck up everything that lay before it, gravel, rocks, portions of the lawn, everything! "Slide, sluggies, slide! Slide inside the house so we can get some cleaning done," The slugs lured the vaccuum in to the house and up the stairs, where it did a fabulous job of picking up all of the dirt and lint from the premises. When they had gotten the bulk of the property looking good, they slid quickly back outside and directed the monster back in to the box and trapped it from whence it came.
"Good job everybody! Slug's Rest is ready for summer, and we all lived to tell about it!"

Monday, May 10, 2010

Mr. Slug looks slick in everything he wears!

Today, Mr. Slug woke up to an empty underwear and sock drawer. To make matters worse, all of his work suits are out at the cleaners and all he had to wear was a tatty old hooded sweatshirt and a tailsock that was too thin to consider wearing. Mr. Slug decided that he had too much to do at work to take the day off, so he pulled the hoodie over his mantle and slid to the office feeling inappropriately dressed but ready to face the stack of file folders and phone messages on his desk, as well as the expected snickers from his co-workers. Everything was going fine, until.....
Mrs. Slug received a call from Mr. Slug at lunchtime. Mr. Slug said that he was, "in a panic" and to bring him a suit, tie and wingtip tailshoe as soon as possible. He said quickly, "The head honchos are on the way to take the crew to a nice restaurant for a lunch meeting today. It figures that the bosses would pick today of all days. This sweatshirt smells like a gym."
Mrs. Slug knew that there were no clothes available, so she stopped by the nearest haberdasher and bought a new suit, tie, and the finest Egyptian cotton shirt money can buy. She then slid on over to the shoe store and purchased one very special Ferragamo tailshoe made of the softest Corinthian leather upper with a custom stacked heel that even comes with a nifty raised insert to help Mr. Slug look extra tall and important. 
When Mrs. Slug arrived at the office, the group of businessslugs were arriving. Some of them were already in the elevator! Mrs. Slug took the stairs, er, handrail, and slid to the tenth floor as fast as she could slide.  Mr. Slug was able to slide into his new suit quickly. The businessslugs were lined up in the hallway, waiting for Mr. Slug to join them. Mr. Slug filled the sink with water and soap and went for a quick swim. He dried himself off with the automatic hair dryer and slicked back his optical tentacles with water. He looked at himself one last time in the mirror to make sure he had no spinach stuck in his rasp when he smiles. He straightened his new silk tie and smoothed the lines of his coat before saying to himself, "Mr. Slug, you handsome mollusk, you know you got it goin' on. I would sign a six figure contract with you, just because you look so good!" Mr. Slug slid to lunch with the group and gave a hearty flick of the tail back at his loving wife as he left to lunch.  
The next day, Mr. Slug held a safety meeting. The topic for the day was, "A good businessslug will always have an emergency suit of clothes on hand for the unexpected meeting or executive lunch. Do not let yourself be caught without the proper threads for a surprise meeting. If you don't have a suit of clothes always on hand, at least have the sense to marry a loving and attentive wife who knows what you look best in and can get them for you in a pinch."
Mr. Slug celebrated with Mrs. Slug by buying her a new dress and an adorable strappy little tailsandal with a jeweled buckle before he took her out to the theater the following weekend. Mr. Slug certainly knows where his bread is buttered!