Yesterday I found a slug in my celery.
I know that I ask for it by self-righteously insisting that all my vegetables be organic, and going as far as to sign up for delivery of a weekly local organic produce box.
Still, I expect the bugs in my kale and my cabbage (slugs love those, for some reason), and I usually kindly ask that those be left out o’ the box. But celery? Et tu?
I was taken by surprise.
Sidebar: I have an actual clinical phobia of worms and slugs. Even writing the term “worms and slugs” makes me shiver and consider gagging. I think this is my mom’s fault. She did all her own gardening when we were little (bless her heart) and, odds aside, I was always the one who found the bug in my corn, or my artichoke, or my lettuce, or my whatever. You could ask yourself if maybe I was just looking harder than everyone else, but I think it was God’s way of laughing at my squeemishness, and maybe punishing me for being such a bad garden-helper.
I have a small panic attach when I see a slug. So in this case, when said slug happened to already be in the sink when I spied him, he went RIGHT down the drain.
Let me just say that I’ve come a long way from the day when the mere sight of a slug in my own kitchen would have sent me packing for Iceland. I think my reaction was pretty mature and tame, relatively.
The problem is, I had to run the garbage disposal about five minutes later when the sink got mysteriously backed up.
This was not one of my finer moments.
I did cry a little bit, if that counts.
I feel horrible.
I promise never to do it again. I no longer eat celery.
