Snail Tale

With the time change, it is now dark when I walk my dogs in the morning. Darkness makes me inordinately lethargic, and I tend to fixate on one thing to wake my brain up, until coffee takes over. This morning, I walked my dogs along our usual path, and they sniffed their usual spots. At one stop, as I stared down at the sidewalk, I noticed a snail slime path coming from the left. The snail had evidently slimed its way across the sidewalk until it was almost an inch from the right side, then did a U-turn, and returned to the grass on the left. It's a wide sidewalk, so the creature's round trip was about six feet. It must have taken all night. Why did it turn around? What goes on in a snail's brain? How far can they see? Maybe it got frustrated or nervous, and turned around. 

I know nothing about snails, except that I find them rather charming, in a Beatrix Potter, idealized sort of way. I find slugs repulsive, but slap a cute curly little shell on it, and I want to name it and keep it as a pet.

I probably wouldn't have even noticed this snail trail today except for the fact that yesterday, I noticed about six or seven snails in the same spot, all moving in the same direction, left to right. A herd of snails. A flock of snails. A stampede of snails, all headed doggedly (as if a snail can be any other way) towards the same place. It was actually kind of a funny sight, as if they were in a race. So this morning, I wondered if there was a connection between the two molluscan events? Maybe they were a pride of snails who migrated to the other side of the sidewalk, for reasons known only to them. Maybe the snail from today was a pariah, and was left behind on purpose. As it approached the new settlement, the other snails sent out a wave-off, or a warning shot over the bow.

Or maybe it was a devoted parent, who was unwilling to leave a snaillette? Maybe it forgot something, and had to return to retrieve it? Perhaps it suddenly and capriciously chose the life of a snail hermit? I'll never know.
These are the kind of things that skitter through my mind in the morning. I may need to up my caffeine intake.