This is going to be the picture that comes back to haunt Dan when he starts his political career.  Or the one that causes him to lose his multi-million dollar Kellogg's contract after he wins the Olympic Gold Medal in swimming.  Or the one that will be all over the tabloids when he wins Miss America or starts dating John Gosselin.  I'd better explain.

FYI, I know that we're well into August, but I'm still blogging July.

One particularly wet and cloudy morning before work, Dan noticed spots all over our white fence in the back yard.  I went out to investigate and found the grossest thing I'd ever seen.  Snails.  Dozens of them.  And they were everywhere.  Not just small ones, either.  I started gathering them into the first container I could find, which happened to be Little H's sidewalk chalk bucket.  I pretty much filled the bucket after getting them off the fence and out of my garden.  My poor sad little garden.  Then I put them in our city garbage can and put a rock on the lid so they couldn't get out and get revenge.  Then I washed my hands five times.

I was still disturbed so I did a little research (okay, a Google search, but same thing) on ways to get rid of snails.  I guess there is something called "snail bait" out there, but it could hurt pets and as much as Casey sometimes gets on my nerves, I wouldn't want him to get hurt so I decided against that.  Another person suggested going out to the garden at night with a flashlight and finding the snails and smashing them.  I don't even like to smash spiders if I think it will make a crunching sound so that was out of the question.  Finally, several sites suggested setting out a bowl of beer because snails and slugs love it.  They will get too drunk to move, making them easy targets for birds in the mornings.  Perfect!  That way, I get to be carded for the first time ever, and I don't have to crunch snails.

So, Dan and I went to a grocery store in a neighborhood where we don't know anyone and bought some Pabst Blue Ribbon.  It may have been inexpensive, but I know for sure it was good quality because it was selected as America's Best in 1893—it says so right on the can.  We filled a tin plate and set it out by the garden for the nasty little buggers.  (Later that evening, when we realized why we couldn't get the dog to come back into the house, we had to refill the tin plate.  Stupid drunk dog.)  I didn't get out to check the plate until about 9:30 the next morning, but most the beer was gone, and there was a woozy-looking slug and potato bug still hanging out along the edges.  I have to assume the birds got the snails because we haven't seen any since, and the bean plants have a lot fewer holes than before.

   

And to explain the picture of Dan?  I don't know.  He was just humoring his wife who sometimes acts like an immature teenager and gets the giggles when she's doing something she might get grounded for.