Pardon Me, There's A Snail In My Salad

I understand that growing your own veggies leads to all sorts of dirt and bugs that you wouldn't ordinarily find on your grocery produce. And I thought I was totally cool with that. This is not my first year of veggie growing, after all. I've seen things and still eaten my veggies afterwards.

Until now. A few weeks ago I was making a new recipe, a lettuce salad with chicken and a Thai dressing. I have so much lettuce in our garden and the weather was warm, so it's perfect. I've got all the lettuce soaking in a huge bowl, and as I take them out I even give them a rinse.

My next handful of lettuce to be rinsed felt weird, like it was a big mess of clinginess. I looked down and dropped the handful in the sink. It was a poor snail, now very waterlogged and not good looking.

I scooped him into a cup and asked my son to take him outside to...um wherever. Come to think of it, I have no idea where the snail ended up. I tossed out some of that lettuce in the sink because it was weirdly slimy, but continued on with my rinsing and washing and drying and spinning.

All with the snail utmost in my thoughts.

When it came time to eat dinner, I could barely do it. The dressing tasted fine, but it was so heavy it made all the lettuce and chicken roll up into a sticky slime ball. It was very snail slime-esque.

I continue to eat my lettuce almost every night at dinner. I'm very proud of how lovely it looks. But on the inside, I'm crying a little. That snail will haunt my love of salad.

Needless to say, now every leaf of lettuce gets a thorough inspection in the garden patch. There will be no more snails drowning in my salad bath. I hope and pray.