The Gastropod Mollusc Emerges!!

The Owner has had a less than perfect start to his day and so I am expecting mine to get worse! In recent weeks he has informed me that there has been a slug in the studio overnight. I was a little disbelieving at first as I had witnessed him going up the stairs to bed each night, I had heard him snoring away all night long and I had seen him come grumbling down the stairs again the following morning. So how could he have known? It turns out that the strange silvery marks on the carpet are not actually down to me at all, but are the "evidence" of the slugs nocturnal perambulations around the studio carpet. You would think with that much "evidence" (The Owner has been watching far too many crime dramas recently) as to where the slug had been it would be a straightforward process finding where it was. Even I couldn't find it! So each morning the carpet was further covered by the remains of a slimy trail and The Owner became more depressed that we couldn't find it. This morning he found it!! You'd have thought he would have been pleased, but oh no! There has been much huffing and puffing and yucking and I think it may be the calf sheds for me today for my own safety. We got to the studio as normal this morning and, as normal, he makes a mug of tea (I never get one unless Owners Daughter or Small Boy are here) and settles down to read his emails and other hoomun stuff. Placing his big mug on the desk beside him he absent mindedly took a sip periodically. It was during one of thise sips that I witnessed one of those beautiful moments when two species really connect. Gastropod Mollusc and Hoomun, eye to eye! It seems that Slug, as we are now on first name terms, joined by a common bond of being on the rough end of The Owners morning temper, had apparently felt that he liked the sensation of the warmth of the mug through his belly and slithered up the side of The Owner's tea mug. Slugs eyes, by his very nature, are on stalks and so were The Owner's when he realised what he was looking at and was about to take a sip from. There has been a lot of yucking over the last half an hour and the tea mug has been thrown out and so has Slug. I'll be in the calf sheds if anyone wants me.