One winter, when the weather was cold and bleak, a friend and I pondered over the seed catalogues and admired the glossy pictures of the bright colored flowers.

We decided to order some seeds and agreed that by planting them early we should have flowers by mid-June.

When the seed order arrived in April, we both planted the seed according to the directions on the packages in small containers and placed them in a warm sunny window inside the house, picturing the light green and dark red decorative kahl and colored petunias blooming in the borders of our flower beds.

We checked with each other almost daily on the growth of our seeds and when the weather was warm enough and the seedlings had reached a healthy height, I planted mine on the outer edge of the rock garden.

I took great care to alternate the light green and dark red leafed kahl and in spacing petunias far enough apart, giving them plenty of room to flourish.

My friend had to discard most of her plants because she over-watered them and they died.

It rained for a couple of days so I didn't check on the progress of the plants that I had set out until the wet weather cleared.

Then I walked around the rock garden. To my astonishment the colored kahl had completely disappeared and the petunias were just little green stubs.

In viewing the earth a little closer I could see the telltale silver trails of slugs.

When I told my friend about the slugs eating the plants, we both laughed at our failure to produce flowers that resembled the colored pictures in the seed catalogues.

"Next year when the seed catalogues arrive, let's remember what happened to our plants this year," I said.

"I'll throw the catalogues away as soon as they arrive," my friend told me.

Later that day I said to my husband, "The slugs have eaten the plants that I put in the rock garden."

"Do you want me to use some bug spray on them?" he asked.

"It's no use. All of the leaves have been eatin." I told him, "but I would like to stop them from eating the other plants."

"Then put out some small containers of beer," he suggested.

"Will that get the slugs?"

"Sure. The sweet smell of the beer will attract them into the containers and they'll drown," he explained.

That night, I poured a small amount of beer into some pie pans and placed them in the rock garden. The next morning, the bottoms of the pans were covered with lifeless slugs.

"Did you catch some slugs?" my husband asked.

"I sure did."

"And they're dead?"

"Yes . . . dead drunk."