It had rained, heavily, all night. The driven droplets had battered against her bedroom window, keeping her awake. She liked storms and had lain there listening to the crash of thunder, seeing the small room illuminated in ghostly flashes before drifting, finally, to sleep.
Morning had dawned clear and bright, the world drenched with rain. As she stepped out of the door for the walk to school she had no idea of the horrors that awaited…
The high grassy banks that lined the path for the mile to school had been saturated, washing away soil, and depositing the pale, rain-soaked bodies of earthworms across the paths.
She liked earthworms too. The warm pinky brown of their sinuous bodies, all shiny and … well, earthy… going about their business of making the earth beautiful.
But there were hundreds of them, thousands it seemed to the horrified little eyes. Wet, white, flaccid.. and, it appeared, dead. She had never seen so many in all her seven years. With every footstep the feeling of horror rose as she was obliged to step on earthworms… there was nowhere else to walk… she wanted to turn back, but Mam wasn’t there and Dad would only laugh at her…and she had to get to school.
She was sobbing by the time she arrived…
Which is why I was so darned grateful to my younger son this evening. I admit it, I am a wuss… a wimp… pathetic…whatever you want to call it… but I don’t do wet worms.
Ever since that morning. I have an absolute horror of them.
There. I said it. Publicly.
Nice wriggly worms in their natural milieu, all earthy and pink… fine… no problem. But wet ones… no…dead, white, wet ones are the worst. Let’s not think about them. Please.
Let’s think instead about the pond at my elder son’s home which had dropped dramatically yesterday. I checked for weeds, shuddering as I stripped back some overgrowth and found a worm in my hand.. pale and white….
The cavalry
I topped it up, called younger son Alex to have a look and we decided the pump needed a clean out.. probably. I would see how it went today. It had dropped again by two foot. Panic stations… call the cavalry…
The cavalry arrived on its motorbike, and armed with a cold beer and rubber gloves, set to work. It wasn’t nice, it wasn’t pretty… globs of smelly gunge were dug out of the sump, buckets filled with the stuff. Clouds of midges objected to the intrusion and seemed hell-bent on attack. But I was ok at this point… then my son held up a rinsed filter post…
It wasn’t pretty…
“What are all these worms, Mum?”
Eyes wide with horror I beheld them… hundreds of them… wriggling.. and wet…
It mattered not that they were alive and black… and about three millimetres long. They were wet.
My cover is blown… I’ve hidden this for years, quite successfully… as I cringe and recoil, making little ‘yeurch’ noises. Not realising the full extent of the situation, Alex brandishes the worm ridden post closer so I can see… and looks down, from his full six foot two on the quivering, diminutive wreck of his mother.
Erm…..no
I explain. He laughs. He is a fisherman… he doesn’t mind drowning worms…I mention spiders. He stops laughing and removes the worms. He rescues me from the small wet body on the hosepipe I am holding like a live snake and finishes the cleaning without my immediate presence in the vicinity…
Close enough for me…
I couldn’t have done it. Simon (the big ghost koi – don’t ask…) would have wallowed in half a pond full, the orfe would have been distressed, the sturgeon in trouble, the shubunkins stranded…
But Alex, my younger son, bless him, rescued us all.
Tonight, he is my hero.
My hero
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
LOL All superheroes, it appears, have that little thing that only their arch nemesis can use against them… 😀
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These were more in the nature of nematodes than nemesis…:-)
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Sorry 🙂
Someone always ruins it for the rest 😦
I am Scottish
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Someone had to 🙂
Though it was more gungebusters 🙂
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ha ha ha
I was like “What song can I play”
Easy choice 🙂
lol x
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I admit it was going through my mind too 🙂
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Beat ya 🙂
lol
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🙂
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na-na-na
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*chuckles*
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🙂
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Bless Alex … and, thank heaven, he got the job done. Hope the koi, Simon, is OK.
The one I call to get rid of icky bugs is my hubby, Dave. But I did rather hastily remove a smallish snake from our living room … swept it into a small dustpan and deposited outdoors. Gad!
Thank you, prayingforoneday, for one of my favorite movie tunes, “Ghostbusters.” Always makes me chuckle.
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Snakes we don’t have so much here.. pretty rare, sadly.
The fish are all fine…
It is quite nice after years on spider-duty to have Alex rescue me 🙂
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😆
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I Nominate you for A Bunch of Awards – 13 Nominations
please choose any 2 awards out of the 13
accept it and oblige
there are no linkbacks for this award
http://ajaytao2010.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/a-bunch-of-awards-13-nominations/
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Thank you, Ajay. You are so kind. x
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thank you dear
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Thank goodness for Alex, Sue: what a scary ordeal. xxx
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Alex, as I said.. my hero… once we had established the spider precedent…xxxx
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Awwww, I loved this story! Thank you for linking it to your recent post on phobias.
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Well.. Wet worms are mine 🙂 happy new year 🙂
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Happy New Year to you and your family.
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🙂
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