Torrential downpours from Huricane Alex resulted in some minor flooding on our street. Nothing too bad, mainly just a nuisance. The inch or two of water in my neighbor's garage brought a whole battalion of earthworms along with it. I sent my 3 kids down there in a humanitarian effort to save the worms from certain death and to save my neighbor from having to do the chore herself. Their new home was to be my compost heap. The thought of dozens of new earthworms working for me for free made me almost as excited as the prospect of a new bag or a new pair of shoes. Really, I would be the one to benefit from this transaction while my neighbor, my kids and the worms were each thinking they were the winners.
I was at work all day yesterday; 12 hrs in the emergency room leaving the kids in the capable hands of their father and the babysitter. I had been on my way to work when my neighbor told me about her uninvited guests and I offered up my children as her earthworm removers. I called home and instructed my babysitter and the eldest on their task. Simple.
Apparently the actual harvesting of the worms was a success. Whole fist fulls were scooped up to everyone's delight. My middle kid was quoted as saying "this is awesome!" As they squished between his fingers he assured them of their hope and their future; "Don't worry, I'm taking you to a happy place!" Little did he or his invertebrate friends realize that this was just a foreshadowing of what was to come.
Rather than put them in the outdoor compost heap, my middle kid collected the 50+ earthworms from his brother and sister and brought them to the climate controlled environment of the indoor compost pale (for scraps). This might have been okay were it not for the ventilation (read: lid left slightly ajar) that was so thoughtfully provided by my son.
When Lee & the kids finally got home at the end of the day they walked into the worst earthworm genocide in history! Little earthworm corpses were everywhere: the counter top, the sink, the floor. Dozens and dozens of fallen soldiers; women and children, grandparents, aunts & uncles. All of them gone! The search and rescue team began their recovery mission but there were no survivors. The bodies were thrown into a mass grave and all but forgotten. Until....
Late that evening, after the kids were in bed and Lee had told me about the great earthworm escape, we were cleaning the kitchen and I opened the lid to the pail to drop in some scraps and out came the stench of rotting flesh. The souls of those worms had come back to haunt us in the form of the most offensive odor imaginable!
I shouldn't judge, but I will! Two adults in charge of 3 kids whose cummulative age doesn't come near either of theirs and I come home to the smell of rotting earthworm carcasses! I think we might be able to market a new air freshner.....
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