The Cheerful Slug

The Cheerful Slug is so named because the slug is so vastly unappealing. It was discovered in the 1890’s by Marvin J. Freddermeier, an explorer who is known for mapping out large swatches of the South American rainforest and for being stabbed by all three of his ex-wives during their various divorce proceedings. Freddermeier was searching for a fabled red anteater that was rumored to live in the densest parts of the terrain, but after months of failed expedition, Freddermeier found himself in his tent one night when he heard what he thought was one of his colleagues choking on a Brazil nut.

When he exited the tent, he followed the sound to its source--

The Cheerful Slug.

At the time, it had not been named, and nobody would ever think to give it the moniker of “cheerful” if they came upon it the way Freddermeier did. While slugs generally are not known for their lovely appearance, the Cheerful Slug is particularly unattractive. It has an off-grey color that resembles whale phlegm and the sound Freddermeier heard was its mating call. Despite its small size, the sound can be heard from several yards away. The Cheerful Slug also has the unfortunate habit of swallowing its own head, defecating it out its tail, and rolling it back up its body again, only to repeat the process every few hours.

Freddermeier contemplated finding as many of these slugs as possible in order to murder them both to prevent the continuation of an evolutionary disaster and to put the poor little creatures out of their misery, but due to his lack of success at finding anything he could write home about, and with loads of alimony to pay, he decided to make the best of a bad situation.

He had his team collect as many of the slugs as they could, which wasn’t easy, because they’re covered in a foul mucus that burns when touched by human skin. Several of Freddermeier’s men lost their fingertips during this acquisition, and that’s to say nothing of dementia one can develop if the slugs are eaten. Supplies were scarce towards the end of the expedition, and desperate times called for boiling slugs over a campfire. Freddermeier didn’t approve, but he knew better than to try and stop them. He had plenty of specimens so he let them alone, but he refrained from dining with them, and good thing for Freddermeier, because every single man who ate the Cheerful Slug not only lost their minds, but insisted on having hideous wallpaper put up in their homes before their deaths.

Once the slugs were brought back to the states, Freddermeier managed to unload them on several labs and one or two zoos that specialized in rare and unhygienic animals. The only trouble was, the slugs needed a name.

Fearing that any living thing with so many reasons to be extinct might find itself in danger, Freddermeier pulled the oldest trick in the book (The book being How to Name a Newly Discovered Animal So That Less People Try to Murder It) by misnaming the slugs in order to endear them to the public at large.

The trouble began when parents, hearing that there was a new breed of slug in America called “cheerful,” decided that they would buy them for their children as a Christmas gift. The slugs procreate at an alarming rate, so the owners who had procured them from Freddermeier were only too happy to make a buck off the surplus.

It should come as no surprise that the Cheerful Slug did not make for an ideal pet. In fact, when the children tried to play with the slugs, it upset them so much that they demonstrated a previously unknown defense tactic of firing small pellets from their eyes. At first, the children found the projectiles amusing, but two blindings later, legislatures all across the country enacted laws against domesticating the mollusks.

What had then been a surplus soon became an endangered species, as angry mothers and fathers took to throwing the slugs into fireplaces and feeding them to the family dog, who would then promptly go mad and bark until new wallpaper was installed in every room of the house.

Little did the Americans know that the people of the rainforest had been trying to exterminate the cheerful slugs for years. In fact, amongst the tribes of South America, they were called Limo Diabo, which, loosely translated, means Slime Devil. While they had great success in ridding the world of the little slime devils, it would take decades for America to catch up.

And that’s why we’re writing to you today.

The Society for the Preservation of the Cheerful Slug was created by my grandfather, Marvin J. Freddermeier, who always held a special place in his heart for these highly dangerous and subjectively adorable freaks of nature. He felt it was his duty to ensure that at least two to three of Cheerful Slugs were alive at any given time, but admitted that more than that might be a problem, since they mate frequently and in the most grotesque of positions.

I, Freddy Freddermeier, am asking you to donate money to our cause so that we can help keep a pair of Cheerful Slugs alive and well. It’s not easy. They seem to eat only the most expensive vegetables, and God help you if it’s not organic. That high-pitched squeal they let out gets exponentially louder if you skimp on the cuisine.

In fact, caring for Cheerful Slugs requires twice the funding one would need to look after a snow leopard or even an elephant. Some say we should just give up and let nature take its course, but again, nature, for some reason, really wants these slugs to survive. It’s humans who have decided that something so horrific should be wiped clean off the earth.

With your help, we can stop that from happening.

We could also really use some new wallpaper at the society’s headquarters. For some reason, we can’t stand to look at these plain old walls anymore.

No idea why.