Me vs Rain, and Those Pesky Evil Worms That Scare The Shit Out Of Me

I like rain. I quite like rain a lot.  Rain is great, except when it's not so great.

Here's some great things about rain:

Rain smells nice
Rain makes everything pretty and green
Rain makes the flowers bloom
Rain washes away all the bird poop on my car
Rain fills up my water tank
Rain fills up my pool
Rain fills up the dams
Rain makes me feel like dancing, but not so much outside
Rain in the morning makes me feel like sleeping in
Rain sounds nice on the roof
Rain is much better than snow
Rain means I can wear my fancy rubber boots
Straight down rain is good

Here's some not so great things about rain:

Rain makes everything wet
Rain makes the weeds grow way to fast
Rain makes the grass grow way to fast
Rain makes it hard to spray the weeds and mow the grass
Sideways rain is bad
Rain gives me wet feet
Rain makes for bad hair days
Rain means I can't walk Brown
Rain sometimes means thunder which scares the shit out of Brown
Rain sometimes means a torrential downpour of mass proportions
Rain of torrential downpour of mass proportions floods my garage
Rain of torrential downpour of mass proportions floods my pool

But by far the very worst thing about rain:

Rain brings out those pesky evil worms that scare the shit out of me

Here's some great things about worms:

There are zero great things about worms.  ZERO!

Here's some not so great things about worms:

Worms are pesky
Worms are evil
Worms are slimy
Worms jump and leap all over the place
Worms stink, especially lots of dead worms
Worms are out to get me
Worms scare the living shit out of me

Why do worms scare the living shit out of me?  Because they do.  Everyone I know thinks that it's quite odd that I hate worms.  They try to tell me that worms are good for the soil.  I don't give a shit about the soil.  Maybe I would give a shit about the soil if suddenly everything started to die and there was no food to eat.  But even then I would still hate worms.

I'm not scared of anything else.  I can easily deal with snakes and slugs and snails and caterpillars (because they have legs) and spiders and bugs of any sort. But it's the worms.

When did I start hating worms?  Probably from the time I was exactly 0.01 seconds old.  I think it was an inherited trait.  From who?  I don't know.  No one else in my family history has been shit scared of worms.  I've traced it back generations, and not one person ever said they were shit scared of worms.  Maybe they were just hiding it because they thought it was a bit odd?

I remember when I was 6.10 years old I had a nightmare.  A nightmare of mass proportions. A nightmare so bad I still remember it now.


This is what happened in the nightmare:


There was a can of Zoodles in the cupboard.  You know, the animal shaped noodles in spaghetti sauce that every Canadian kid grew up on.  That and Kraft Dinner, but at that time Kraft Dinner only came in tubes, not animal shapes.  That can of Zoodles somehow became open.  The only animal to escape was a worm.  I don't think worms were part of the Zoodle family, they aren't an animal kept on display in a zoo after all.  It must have been a bit of a broken Zoodle, perhaps part of a giraffe or a hippopotamus or a penguin.

But it was the worm, and only the worm that escaped.  It was pesky and evil.  It had a mission, a conspiracy theory to scare the shit out of me.  It slithered down the hallway and found my bedroom.  It then jumped and leaped so it could reach my bedspread.  It then slimed it's way up to just below my chin.  I was lying on my back.  Suddenly out of nowhere it produced a finger. Or maybe it was a mutant worm that had two heads.  Whatever the case, it reached out and touched me on my chin.

All hell broke loose then.  I yelled and screamed.  Then I woke up.  My parents came running to see what was the matter.  I was clawing at my chin with desperation.  The worm had touched me.  YUCK!

Fact: Since that day I have never ever touched or stepped on a worm.


Okay, revised fact: I have never stepped on a worm knowingly, but I have never touched a worm.


I say that I have never stepped on a worm knowingly because I am still alive. Of course I have unknowingly stepped on worms, but if I knowingly ever stepped on a worm I would have died from a heart attack of shear fright.

Last year I went to a 5 day outdoor music festival.  I like music festivals quite a lot.  Music festivals are great, except when their not so great.  What makes music festivals not so great?  When it rains and rains and rains and turns the fields into a huge mud pit.  Because we all know what lives in mud pits.  Lots and lots of worms.


This is what happened at the 5 day outdoor music festival:


It started off really great.  I was with friends having fun.  I had my brand new fancy rubber boots that would protect me from any pesky evil worms.  The only problem was that my rubber boots were a size to small.  Why?  Because I have very big feet and I couldn't find any my size.  They were comfortable enough when I tried them on, but I couldn't wear thick socks in them.  It didn't occur to me that after wearing them for 13 hours a day for 5 days straight that I may come across problems.

I did.  Problems of mass proportions in fact.  After day 2 I started developing blisters.  Only small ones.  By the end of day 3 small blisters became big blisters, and other small blisters developed quite rapidly.  On day 4 I was wearing so many bandaids I'm pretty sure I should have owned shares in the bandaid company.  At the end of day 4 I ended up in the first aid tent with ice on my blisters.  By this time the fields were pure mud.  I thought that I might be in trouble on day five.

I was.  I woke up late, everyone else had already gone.  I knew there was no way in hell that I could wear my rubber boots.  But I had a plan, a very clever plan.  Why didn't I think of this earlier?  Because it turned out not to be a very clever plan after all.

The plan:


Instead of wearing my fancy rubber boots, I'd wear my double pluggers.  Simple, I would still be mildly protected from worms and I would be having so much fun it wouldn't matter. The plan didn't work.

This is what happened:


I went to day 5 of the music festival all happy ready to have a great time.  I had my double pluggers on and had no worries.  Within exactly 17 seconds of walking in the mud I realised it was not going to work.  Within exactly 49 seconds of walking very strangely one of my double pluggers broke.  You see they kept sinking into the mud and getting stuck until finally one snapped off completely.  Oh shit.

My feet were now in direct contact with worms.  Millions and Billions and Trillions of worms. Ever step I took I thought about this. Squishing worms between my toes, but I couldn't see them thankfully. I tried not to think about this as I headed to the closest beer tent.  You see in the beer tent I would be safe, they were covered so the ankle deep mud didn't exist. I was safe. I spent the rest of the day in the beer tent, listening to zero music, but got rather shitfaced instead.  I might have had fun on day 5, if it wasn't for the fact I would have to leave eventually.  And plod through those Millions and Billions and Trillions of worms on the way out.  It scared the living shit out of me.

When I finally got back to where I was staying I scrubbed my feet for exactly 38 minutes.  And barfed, maybe due to the copious amounts of beer.  But probably due to the fact that I had touched Millions and Billions and Trillions of worms.

Lesson learnt #1:  Worms are pesky and evil and scare the shit out of me. They are all out to get me

Lesson learnt #2:  Don't by rubber boots that are a size to small and expect them to be comfortable for 5 days of hard core music festival fun

Lesson learnt #3:  Don't expect double pluggers to protect you from worms in fields of mud.  They won't

Lesson learnt #4: Always look where I am stepping when it rains so I don't knowingly step on a worm because if I do ever step on a worm I will die from a heart attack of shear fright.