Deep Thoughts

The other evening, as I was walking from work to my car after a delightful 10 hours in the JFSB, I looked down and noticed a snail traversing its way across the sidewalk.  I made it a point to greet it warmly before passing it by.  

As I travelled onward, I pondered about the snail and is mode of transportation.  I first thought of the song "Snails" by The Format.  And then I realized that I didn't really know or understand the lyrics.  I recently confirmed that I neither know nor understand them after having looked them up on-line.  

My next train of though was regarding the safety factors associated with a snail's slow pace while crossing something as potentially dangerous to it as a human sidewalk.  So I started contemplating other possible means of transportation that would quicker for the snail.  And this thought process was slightly derailed as I took a tangent that considered the possibility of a cocky, dare-devilesque snail learning to roll itself around on its shell.  As soon as this idea occurred to me, I found it to be appealing, but my practical side immediately began identifying some of the inherent challenges.

First off, the young snail with such aspirations would need a crew to help him.  He would likely encounter a great deal of failure in which he tips over on his sides or gets stuck upside-down.  And he'd probably (I'm assuming it would be a he-snail) crash down to his original starting position repeatedly, which could be dangerous to his gelatinous torso with the harder and heavier shell and gravity coming back down atop him.  He may need snail medics on hand. 

Anyway, for instances when he ends up with his shell rather than its body on the pavement, he would defintely require help getting back on its foot.  And since snails are slow and lack hands and such, at the very least it would take several helpers and a lot of time to get him back to his original state.  Or at least I assumed as much.  A snail wouldn't want to try to roll around and then end up in an "I've fallen down and I can't get up" situation.   That strikes me as something that would be both embarrassing and dangerous.

The next major problem that occurred to me related to the capacity of the snail to work up the inertia or whatever to propel itself sufficiently to successfully maneuver a 360 roll.  Since it doesn't have joints and springs, and its muscles are used for gliding and its only other superpower is secreting mucus, I just doubt it would work out.  

And then there is the question of where to practice that isn't endangering the whole lot of snails involved in the training.  The location would need to offer a similar flat, frictionless surface.  And then there is the question of how to stay oriented to direction.  At about this point in my ponderings I got distracted by a lilac bush.  But yeah...I figure that I determined that a slug learning to roll was about as unfunctional of an idea as having an invisible car in the city.