Day 24 - We Kill Them One by One

Not content with nearly killing us on our Sunday drive, Michael goes further and actually shoots Paul. A plastic pellet aimed from his pistol at an intruder cat ricochets and hits Paul on the middle finger. Ouch, it stings.

“Dad! That hit Paul” says Nicole. “Yes…” replies Michael, “…it bounced up!” in a matter-of-fact explanation rather than an apology. We behave more like parents ourselves as we mutter darkly about the possibility that someone could have lost an eye.

Lunch today is snails. It’s Michael’s project: all last night the still-alive snails slimed around in a huge pot on the stove. “They must be boiled alive to taste best” says Michael with a grin, “we kill them: one by one”.

Together we draw the line and talk ourselves out of sharing the snails. We reason that they crawl on the ground, and are slimy, and must have intestinal tracts full of bad things, and are slimy and our main objection is that they are slimy. We stick to fish and bread.