The Ferris Physical Plant (EffPeePee), in conjunction with the Chemical Plant and the Emerald Hill Zone, recently released a university-wide memo detailing the overall salt use on Ferris sidewalks, parking lots and streets, and the results are unsettling.
The EffPeePee used an approximate 43 billion metric tons of snow melt salt this winter so far, and according to Ferris alchemy professor Eura Wizzerdarry, the results are expected to wreak havoc on the immediate ecosystem, especially regarding local snail and slug populations.
“The salt will kill ‘em,” he said. “Kill ‘em dead. This not good.”
According to Wizzerdarry, the effects of declining snail and slug populations are devastating to public health. Both slugs and snails are vital for flower pollination. They illuminate fields and walkways at night using bioluminescence, reducing crime and increasing visibility. And many species eat large quantities of mosquitoes, reducing an outbreak of malaria and yellow fever like that which Ferris suffered in the early 90s.
“My dear old Caroline succumbed to the yellow fever in the great outbreak of 1996,” Wizzerdarry said. “Without slugs or snails, we might see such an outbreak again. Dark times these is.”
Beside eating mosquitoes, lighting our walks and pollinating our tulips, slugs play another vital role at Ferris: our diet.
According to Ferris Dining assistant associate vice president Cal C. M. Kloryde, slugs and snails make up an approximate 40 percent of all meat ingredients at the Quad Cafe and the Rock Cafe.
“We use these meaty little buttfuckers for most meat products, but especially sausage, pepperoni and taco fill,” Kloryde said.
“Don’t ask what makes up the other 60 percent.”
So what makes up the other 60 percent?
“Ever hear of the ‘freshman fifteen’? How first year students often gain 15 pounds of extra body weight due to uncontrolled overeating? Let’s just say we get those 15 pounds back,” Kloryde said. “Paid in full … with interest. Ever see the movie ‘Soylent Green’?”
No.
“Good,” Kloryde said. “We’ll just leave it at that.”
So if this cold, hard winter extends into April, EffPeePee salt use might triple, and local slugs, snails and wombats will see a decline in population not seen since the triassic period of geological history.
Population declines will trickle up the food chain. And if we’re not careful or considerate in our use of sidewalk snow melt, we could be next, and this lawless wasteland place will go full-blown Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Why not Fury Road you ask?
Because Fury Road is already here. We’re living it.
“Dark times these is,” Wizzerdarry reiterated. “Dark times …”