It was raining pretty hard when I left work today, but I figured I was swimming anyway and what did it matter if I got wet? I was almost halfway through my swim when the lifeguard stopped me and said that there was a tornado warning and we needed to get out of the pool. So, out of the pool I went and then asked if we were to “shelter in place” or what? She didn’t know, but we quickly found out we were supposed to go to the locker room. I went in and decided to go ahead and changed thinking: a). It could last so long as to take up the time i had allocated for my swim or b). If a tornado did hit, I wanted to be wearing something more that a speedo. Although I do look damn good in it.

The warning passed and I went on home and to the basement to check on the litter box. Hey, we all have our roles to play. Except that the litter box was the least of my worries.

Water.

Mostly in the bathroom down there where it was an inch deep, but a few trickles across the floor as well. I got towels, a fan, the de-humidifier on ‘turbo’, a mop and bucket, and finally the shop vac. The water was running out of and down one of the interior walls but it finally settled down and I was able to get ahead of it. I’ll reconfigure things down there before I go to bed, but I think things are sort of under control. Though it’s still damp and I’m still annoyed. It was a lot of rain, but still…

And somehow, that’s not the worst of it. The back patio slab is crawling – literally – with slugs. Big, fat, orange slugs. Just like the one that nearly caused me to cut my thumb off when I squished it and the guts wouldn’t wash off. They are huge and they are everywhere. I counted 50 before I got too freaked out. They are on the concrete, on the fence, on the driveway… shudder. If they come in the house, I’m going to burn it down – only way to be sure. Did I mention “shudder”?

So, I’m going to try and calm myself down and maybe have a nice cup of tea. I’m clearly not going to sleep tonight as I’m certain my cat will lick me and I’ll think it’s the raspy “bite” of a mutant slug and I will die of sheer imagined terror.

Yeah, that’s kind of how my evening went.