SKILLY-ROOCHES
We were going camping in the Cascades. J.B. and I and Art and Bruce. At the last minute Art had announced that he had cousins coming from Ohio that he was expected to entertain for the weekend. We thought "That's all we need, a bunch of flatlanders in the mountains." But as we were trying to get out for the weekend at any expense. we said we would take them anyway.
We knew of a tumbled-down cabin in the woods out by Mount Rainier where we had planned to spend the night, and although it was small, it would serve for a small group of people for one night. In the best tradition of campers. after dinner we told scary tales of the woods of the Northwest. I am not sure who came up with the idea, but we began to spin tales of the Skilly Rooches. Skilly Rooches are legendary vampire slugs which live on the slopes of Mount Rainier and slither up on unsuspecting campers in the night. They have an enzyme in there saliva , which is similar to that of the vampire bat, making their bite painless. They resemble the Banana slug, and are all but undetectable, since they never come out except at night. An unsuspecting camper hunkers down in his sleeping bag at night and never wakes in the morning. All that remains is a dissicated husk, surrounded by slime trails. As the campfire burned itself down we settled in. Art said "Hey, Jimmie-Joe, don't you be worried none about the Skilly Rooches, they don't usually come down this low on the mountain." I piped in "Yes, they are high country critters, you seldom see one below about 6,000 feet." "How high are we anyway?" asked Billy-Bob. "Only about 5500." said J.B. "Shouldn't be any worry, unless it gets cold tonight." So Jimmie-Joe he asks "Why should the temperature make any difference?' "You see," says I, "Skilly-Rooches don't know how high they are, they only seem to respond to temperature and atmospheric pressure, so if it is especially cold and the atmospheric pressure is low, they might be able to come down lower on the mountain. We are on the outside range of their territory, so unless it gets real cold with an incoming storm front we should be safe." Jimmy-Joe says " I don't believe a single word you guys are telling us. This is like a snipe hunt we used to pull on new guys at the camp back in Ohio." All we had to say was "That's fine, you guys go to bed and don't worry about a thing." We all went to bed.
I noticed as we went to bed that Jimmy-Joe and Billy-Bob both had pulled their sheath knives out of their belts and were sleeping with them close to their heads.
"Oh well" I thought, " I guess we better put away the Jello surprise we had for them, or someone might get hurt."

When my daughter was 4 or 5 years old, a friend happened to visit. Rose and I were playing a game we call "Skilly-Rooches" which involved keeping your feet off of the floor because the Skilly-Rooches were going to get you. She had gotten several toys for Christmas which were toy cats with long tails which were stuck on with velcro. Well, velcro sticks on any available surface. The cats had 3 tails each and the idea was to get all of the tails on each others socks. (Skilly-Rooches stick very well to socks.) My friend asked "what the heck is this game that you are playing?" I tried to explain about the Skilly-Rooches, but I'm not sure he ever understood.