I Keep Worms in My Fridge

On Saturday my husband got the sudden and uncontrollable urge to go fishing. So, he drove himself right to the store and stocked up on some hooks and nightcrawlers.  Now, you may not know this but nightcrawlers (AKA, worms) come in little take-out food like containers. Looks OK on the outside, but nothing like take out on the inside.  (Unless, of course, you're a fish, and then it might look pretty good). Anyway, the weather looked ominous and the day passed quickly and we never quite got to go fishing. 

So, there we were with this little take out container full of worms and nothing to do with them. "No, problem" my husband said," we'll just put them in the fridge and use them later." (PAUSE HERE TO CONSIDER....DO YOU LIKE TO HAVE WORMS IN YOUR FRIDGE?  THEY ARE STILL ALIVE AND NEED HOLES IN THE LID SO THEY CAN BREATHE.)

He said it so nonchalantly.  As though we often keep containers full of worms on the shelf right between the yogurts and the ketchup.  My protests were quickly dismissed and the worms went into the fridge.  Somehow I knew this wasn't a good thing.

On Monday we still had not go fishing.  I went grocery shopping and while I was unloading the groceries I heard the sound that I had been dreading for the past few days.  The worm scream of death.  It's a panic-like scream that is performed in hyperventilating fashion while doing a strange hopping flapping dance.  My son was doing it.  I came running from the pantry and when I arrived at our open fridge I joined him in the worm scream and dance.  I couldn't help it.  There they were.  Twenty Canadian night crawlers, slithering and slinking on the bottom shelf of my fridge.

My son had just wanted to take a look and then...well, it's all a blur to him after that.  But, somehow the worm take out container was overturned and panic insued. 

After I breathed deeply and tried to take myself to a happy place I saw a worm sliding off the shelf into the produce drawer.  Perhaps interested in having some lettuce?

It was starting to get really out of hand so I grabbed a spatula and started scooping the little guys into a large plastic bag.  And as I did so they flopped around and fell all over the place...it was twenty of them against one of me. 

 

Finally I had scraped them all into a bag. Dirt was everywhere...worm dirt.  I had to disinfect the fridge and the produce drawer and the floor in front of the fridge.  My son suggested that we go fishing or at least go throw them in the water right then and there.  "Dad really wants these worms to be for fishing!" he said.  But, I convinced him that throwing them in the garden might be a more practical solution. 

So, I put them in the garden and told my little guy how they would love the soil and how they would be good for our garden. He loved them in the garden soil.  Then he looked at me and said "mom, that kind of grossed me out when they were in the fridge"....yeah.

And as a perfect ending to the story one hour later my preschooler ran out the back door to check on his worms and found them all dead.  Apparently Canadian night crawlers don't like warm weather and sun.

And so ends the saga of the worms in my fridge.  I would like to conclude this post by reassuring one and all that I will never keep worms in my fridge again.  However, somehow I have a feeling that my boys will convince me that it is normal and no big deal to keep nightcrawlers next to the ketchup again.  So, instead of making any empty promises, I think I'll just invest in some good duct tape to keep the lid on.