You Can Keep The Puppy Dog Tails

I like snails. Water snails. Seriously. I have them in a couple of rooms in my house. I don't know exactly what it is about them but I have had many over the years and would have even more if I felt like cleaning all the bowls.

My very first snail was Babbalucci. A gold Mystery snail I got the year I was married (don't say it with diamonds, say it with water snails). He lived for many years and grew from the gumball I got at the aquarium store to the golfball he was in his golden mystery years.

Santo moved into my bedroom about six months ago. A rich yellow like Babbalucci, he is in his gumball era right now too. He's a good eater, respects the house rules of not sliming out of his bowl and breaking his snail ass on the dresser below. He also has a great sense of humor - he loves to wing out his peen when my room gets dark so when you flip on the light, everyone gets to do that awkward laugh for having walked in on him during private time. He always gets a "Whoa tiger! Let's roll that bad boy up and put it away!" out of me every time. I know, I know, he's a total crack up.

Pepino was a little chocolate brown nugget that lived out in the living room, but he died last week. I am not sure what happened to him, (actually I am pretty sure he killed himself after the Jersey Shore marathon, it's just that suicide is a hard thing to come to grips with)but he wasn't with us for long.

The two in the photo are shacked up in his old bowl. I just got them. Unlike other snails, Mystery snails aren't trannies, so you have to have a boy and a girl -- and they have to be in love to hump out some baby snail eggs. Keep your fingers crossed, this is potentially the first honeymoon snail suite we've had.

Now I am learning there are jade colored mystery snails, so I may just have to get another bowl going...