I still have PTSD from 25 years ago when I killed two snails. I feel terrible about it.

I was on holiday with my first wife in France. We had this beautiful little cottage in the countryside. We went to bed at night and I wanted to close the shutters on the window, so we wouldn’t get waken up at the crack of dawn. But I noticed two large snails sitting on the windowsill outside.

They would be crushed if I closed the shutters. So I did this trick I learnt where I tapped on their shells with the tip of my finger. That tricked them into retreating into the shell. Then I gently applied force to get them off, waiting till they released themselves as to not hurt them.

I set them down on the side, waiting for them to get a grip. Once they were firmly in place I let go and checked they were doing alright. They started crawling away and I was satisfied I could safely close the shutters without harming them. After having done so, I got a good night sleep, perhaps the last good night sleep for the rest of my life.

The next morning I went to open the shutters, to let in the light and some fresh morning air. As I opened the shutters I heard this terrible crunching sound. I was absolutely shocked and my wife put her hand in front of her mouth, pointed at me and yelled: “SNAIL KILLER!”. As I slowly opened the shutters I found that indeed the snails had crawled back to a place in front of the shutters. As I opened the shutters, the snails were completely crushed leaving nothing but a sad pile of sadness.

Obviously I didn’t close the shutters for the rest of the stay. I still feel terrible to this day I failed my small fragile gooey friends. I try to make my garden as inviting as possible for all kinds of animals. And I don’t get a lot of snails, but there are a lot of other small and large critters. The God of Snails probably warns them to stay away, which is understandable.

I’m sorry snail friends, I’ll do better in the future.