One time when I was five years old I found a slug next to my house moving toward the bushes. For ten minutes, I watched it, its eyestalks sensing its environment, seemingly independently of its body. I watched it secrete the mucus layer on which it travelled. A truly marvelous invertebrate, I thought, completely unlike any other organism I had ever seen. I unscrewed the cap of the saltshaker beside me and, despite having heard that I should never do so, I emptied its contents onto the slug. The slug writhed and contorted the length of its body. Its previously perfect skin began to pop and hiss as it turned crispy, from a bright yellow to a golden brown. In that slug I saw myself. As I watched it die, I felt the sting of the salt on my back, all the moisture in my body osmosing through my skin. I fell to the ground in pain, and I saw in the bushes what I could only assume was its slug family. We lay dying together on the moss for what seemed like an eternity. In retrospect I realized I learned something valuable that day. The ability to know something, to really become acquainted with it, to love and even name it, and then dispassionately let it go to become closer to death, would prove useful throughout my life. Anyway, that’s how I got into comedy writing. How was your weekend?

“Isn’t it too late for that question?”

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