I can combine the topics of my last two posts, licking things and slugs, and make a legitimate new topic for today.
I recently got into a conversation whose topic evolved to the point where we were discussing licking at slugs. We thought that licking at a slug would give you a mild electric shock.
While this may in some distant respect be true, what I found on the Internet was that licking at a banana slug will numb your tongue and mouth. The effect is something like novocaine. The story goes that native Indians would use slugs as a treatment for tooth-aches. How on earth would anybody figure that out? Only a toothache would inspire somebody to stuff different random things in their mouth to make the hurt stop.
The wonder that is the World Wide Web provides many different videos showing what happens when you choose to lick at a slug. Everyone says the same thing: doesn't taste of much, numb tongue, slimy sensation, ugh, wouldn't do it again. Either these videos are part of a massive, elaborate multinational conspiracy of ersatz slug-lickers, or else they are true. Believing in these videos means that there is enough evidence out there that I myself won't have to try licking at slugs. At least not until my next toothache.
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