Worms

Partly out of interest, but mostly out of the desire to not go to either the car museum or the train yard yet again, we took the kids to a Bug Fair last weekend. The Fair was pretty cool, consisting of tables upon tables with terrariums filled with things like this:

We got to do fun things like touch scorpions and hissing cockroaches. WonderWife™ and the Bean bravely ate some bugs sautéed with veggies. (It was not lost on me that I had an easier time getting my son to eat veggies when they were mixed with ants and crickets.) We all had a creepy-crawly good time. And at the end of the day, we left with some new additions to our family.

This is how I came to have worms living in my house.

On one of the tables at the Fair were tubs upon tubs of silkworms in various sizes for sale. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, maybe it was when I took Sprout to the bathroom, but WW™ bought a whole mess of them.

Our silkworm friends, their numbers totaling 25, were brought home and transferred to their new residence, an empty shoebox. The bottom of the box was lined with mulberry leaves, on which the worms were happily and constantly munching. The worms were horrible looking little creatures. They had a sickly white color and cracked skin that always looked on the verge of shedding. And they pooped. A lot. It wasn’t long before the shoebox was littered with tiny black feces pellets that rattled when the box was moved. The kids instantly loved their new pets.

Because we live with two cats, one of them more curious about the insect world than the other, the worms needed safe-harbor where they could be free to eat and shit.

This is how I came to have worms living in my bathroom.

While the worms fascinate most of the members of my family, I find them repugnant. Yet there they are right on the counter, squirming and munching and pooping as I brush my teeth. The only time they come out of the bathroom is when the kids watch TV. They park one of the boxes between them on the couch and pet the worms as if they were one of our cats.

I’ve been secretly hoping that the life of a silkworm is short. And it is...kind of. Soon they will grow fat and spin cocoons, hatching as moths. However, those moths lay eggs, out of which will emerge tiny silkworms and the whole process will start over again.

It seems as if the worms are going to be a part of this family for the foreseeable future.