Cabbage theft and retracting snails

A while ago, I told you about my little vegetable patch where one of the varieties of vegetable that we especially grow for the worms, beetles and snails is cabbage - this time around specifically Chinese Cabbage. What does that have to do with Edwafin, you may well ask. Patience is required as we will come to the link soon enough. Of course there is the obvious connection: empty, windy air bags, but we won't sink that low, and it is not much fun either.
I also told you, at the time, that my little doggies have become vegetable aficionados. They have certain preference; all kinds of cabbage they like, including broccoli, and cauliflower, but the seem to especially like Chinese cabbage - you know, when you go Chinesing, those crispy white bits in your vegetables: they are Chinese cabbage. This, until relatively recently in the history of our universe was totally not there at all. It only manifested itself in my awareness, when I saw the packet of seeds on the shelf, and I decided, well let's give the Chinese a chance to be eaten by worms, beetles and snails.
I never realized, that our dogs, Pedro and Gigi, were Kung Fu masters in a past life and know all about Chinese Cabbage, amongst other things. So this morning when I went to inspect my farm, this is what I saw:
Yep, they were enjoying breakfast on the Chinese Cabbage.

As I insinuated above, our vegetable patch is not merely visited by my two dogs. Not by a long shot. There is currently a nightly marauder which is decimating my dinner while I'm sleeping. Somehow I feel the universe is not playing fair here, as I am totally unconscious at the time, possible busy visiting beings of another realm. At just that time, these little critters come and have their fill, only to disappear with the moon.

However, there is one animal that I find rather fascinating: yes, you guessed correctly, the snail or slug. It slithers hither and dither on a path of slime which it produces all by itself. Have you ever tried to walk on one foot on a pathway of slime, while producing slime as you go along? Not easy I tell you. It also has another nifty trick. While skulks around during the darker hours of the day, it has the ability to contract or retract itself into itself: when it feels threatened it just absorbs itself, and retracts into a smaller version of itself, and often into its little shell house. Furthermore, it has a major fear for a major element, sodium or salt to the housewife. Yes, when it touches salt it merely dissolves into a slimy heap, and its little soul departs this planet on a silvery streak to the centre of our galaxy.

Of course, the snail also represents a major archetypal behaviour pattern. For instance, there is the person in our consciousness who leaves a major line of slime as he/she goes along his/her way merrily. Along this way you will find small heaps of slime balls to further mark the way. As a sign of brutal bravado, and the devil may care, they will invade your vegetable patch, and make their statements in slime, after they have raided on of your vegetables they move on to the next own their own slime path.
But it is not all fun and games, however, as every now and then the snail meets another slime maker along its way, and what happens, they both retract, thinking that they are less visible. The only remedy is salt. Salts makes them both melt away into the ground, leaving a small slimy patch and a decimated vegetable garden.

Isn't it peculiar how, we have the concept of retractment in our modern world on planet earth. This essentially means that once you have said something, you can unsay it. No, I'm not talking about apologizing for something said in error on psychological weakness. I'm talking about making a statement of truth, and when under some kind of pressure or fearful prospect, you unsay it, so that the erstwhile truth no longer is a truth nor is it an untruth, but it merely exists in limbo. Like an electron which has lost its way in space, it has no atom to cling to.
With old Patrick, we have had a person who left a slime trail of statements and a totally destroyed cabbage patch. Yet, he soldiered on with a inexhaustible quantity of slime at his disposal. Yet, he never retracted himself by unsaying anything, but then he was the boss-snail in the slimunity. Others of his group, with the same slimy propensity, are not as courageous, and when touched by other slime-makers, they retract seemingly under the impression that their slimy trail will magically disappear. Wishful, I would say, but that is the nature of the animal.

Of course, there is only one remedy in the end: the salt treatment - imagine that.