When I was younger my sister and I would use everything and anything to make a Barbie-sized world come alive. Fluffy towels were unfolded to make lush carpeting. Greeting cards popped up to provide doorways. Cotton balls and jewelry boxes served as throw pillows and benches. Luckily, Barbie’s surroundings were only limited by our imaginations rather than our toy boxes or piggy banks.
That same imaginative quality popped up the other day after sitting outside on the doorstep. I thought someone was on their way to the house, so I went downstairs to open the door. Moving languidly over the cracks, a little snail kept me company as I waited for a person who never arrived. Before knowing that she wouldn’t be able to make it, I continued waiting for her while watching my companion make its way to moist soil. Bored from sitting so long, I grabbed a piece of grass and put it in front of the snail’s path to see what it would do. Slimy ripples undulated over the green blade trying to identify the object. It seemed to pass the test and was judged acceptable to glide upon. Something weird started happening. I bent down to get a closer look. A long, thin brown object seem to come out from the top of the shell as the slug wriggled and writhed around. I wasn’t sure what I was watching, yet it fascinated me. My assumption was it could possibly be feeding or a radula-related anatomical feature. I ran upstairs to grab my camera in hopes of videotaping any activity that followed.
When I arrived back outside all my excitement dissipated. The brown line that seemed to slither out of the snail’s shell and over its body was not part of the gastropod anatomy, rather something excreted from the organism itself.
Lying in a coiled pile a few millimeters away from the snail was the tiniest pile of poop I have ever seen. If my sister and I ever built Barbie a toilet, what the snail left behind would probably have fit inside it perfectly.
