In some towns they have festivals for prize pumpkins or other local produce. In Eugene, Oregon, there's a fiercely fought battle to be crowned the city's Slug Queen. Yes, you read that right... slug, as in those mushy, slimy critters that are basically like snails without a shell.

As you can guess, this isn't any ordinary beauty pageant. Which I guess is why none other than the Wall Street Journal decided to publish an article today on the Eugene Slug Queen competition. It profiles one contestant (whose age and number of children seem oddly similar to Xomba's own Mia Northwest...hmmm) and who struts around in four-inch platform heels while three little girls, who are called "slugettes," lift up the "slime train" on the contestant's skirt.

The Journal article says that Eugene's Slug Queen festival was created about 25 years ago to poke fun at Oregon's other pageants, such as the Rose Queen in Portland. Considering the often rainy weather in Oregon, I guess the folks in Eugene figured that the slug was an apt mascot for their festival. (By the way, the Journal says that SLUG is an acronym for Society for the Legitimization of the Ubiquitous Gastropod.)