Snails Need Therapy

I know what most of you are thinking: Sure, slugs are all right (or not) but snails are so much cooler. Hey, they carry their houses with them everywhere they go.

Yes, in today's real estate market it may seem that a built-in, backpackable abode might be the best way to go, but you still need a place to park it, right? There's no such thing as a Wal-Mollusk, so where do snails homestead? Pretty much the same places slugs do. And while the shells do afford some protection against squishing, I have yet to see the snail who can stand up to even a Vespa, let alone the I-5.

It's not about "home sweet home" or protection. It all goes back to those verdant pre-human days when having two legs was still a questionable fashion and usually accompanied by wings. The Great Gastropod and the Overarching Amphibian were having an argument. It went something like this:

Overarching Amphibian: Whoa, Gastro, you are just flat-out slugugly. Put some clothes on.

Great Gastropod: But fig leaves make me look fat.

Well, that should have been that, but the Great Gastropod's offspring had overheard the conversation. Some of them, being impressionable adolesclugs, became so embarrassed that they belly-footed it over to the rim of the ocean and asked their cousin mollusks to send them some shells, which they did (by way of several dozen hermit crabs, if you're wildly curious).

A mere three weeks later the snails were involved in fashion wars (are light or dark shells "in" this year? Striated or solid?) and had traded in their barebacked body image insecurity for competitive coloration, plus a heaping helping of generalized anxiety disorder caused by the fact that they could no longer squeeze into tight spaces without giving up their beloved shells.

Save yourself a therapy bill. Love your slimy tentacles just the way they are.