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Random Confession – I am guilty of worm murder

sorry, little worm

sorry, little worm

Or, perhaps, negligent wormicide. It wasn’t my intent to kill the worms but the end result was the same :(

See, this is what happened. Somehow or other a huge puddle of water has appeared outside my window, on the side of my apartment. Whether there is a leak or possibly someone wrongly adjusted one of the sprinklers or what, no one seems to know – and no one seems to be able to figure out how to get rid of the water, either, so it just sits there. (I think a leak, because it never dries up.)

After weeks of pointing this out to the lawn care people and warning of undesirable elements which would soon be arriving, it finally happened. After our spate of very warm weather, I looked into the little almost-pond and it was packed with mosquito larvae. Right outside my house.

You can see I had little other choice, no? I couldn’t let them come out of the water and torment me, my mom or the neighborhood children who play out there, spreading West Nile far and wide (it was found in mosquitoes just a few miles from here), so…  I took action. After looking up “killing mosquito larva” on the internet, and following the advice of a few people to put dishsoap or bleach in the water (I used a little of both), I spread destruction and then dusted my hands with satisfaction in a job well done.

And then the earthworms started to crawl out, writhing – throwing themselves on the untainted dirt, only to then bake in the hot sun.

Oh, man.

Mind you, I hate worms – freak out if they are near me, and wouldn’t touch them for anything, but I don’t mean them harm. They just got caught in the crossfire – “collateral damage”, as it were.

Sorry, sorry little worms.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 25th, 2009 at 11:09 am and is filed under random confession, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Comments, Comment or Ping

  1. Joan Kelly

    2:00 pm on May 28th, 2009 1

    You know, I accidentally killed a moth yesterday because I thought he was a mosquito, and I know it makes me a nutty broad to say this, but it broke my fucking heart. I have loved moths since just hearing the title of the movie “Mothra” (don’t even know if I’m spelling it right), never mind seeing it, and I hate ever accidentally hurting them. I know that’s a little different than you not liking worms but not meaning them harm, but still. I feel like I relate. And love to see you post!

  2. Nanette

    5:06 pm on May 28th, 2009 2

    Hi Joan! Good to see you.

    I have done that too, with moths – while I don’t much like them either (or, really, any bugs), I too feel guilty when I accidentally harm one. Or even intentionally –

    I have a (necessarily tacit) agreement with spiders – I will not harm them as long as they stay outside, but inside, well… all bets are off. Sigh.

  3. Joan Kelly

    4:50 pm on May 29th, 2009 3

    Ah, spiders. I recently am trying a new agreement with them, similar to the agreement I had with the giant roaches in my previous apartment. Which is to say, I was seeing these giant creatures (who were hard to kill, which made me feel like I was torturing somebody, which I could not handle) every day when I first moved in. When I was like, I can’t kill any more of you it’s making me cry, please work with me – if you’ll just stay out of sight, I promise to escort any of you safely off the premises if we accidentally meet up once in a blue moon – next thing I know, I’m not seeing any. No kidding. I could not have escorted more than three of them out of the apartment over the whole three years I was there after that.

    So spiders inside are like tiny serial killers in my mind – it’s me or them, I’m seriously phobic. But then this lady told me they’re good luck, plus I know they do good things in the world, plus I like their gumption, and I always hated killing them even though I felt compelled. So I announced the same thing to spiders in my current apartment – truce, so long as you mostly keep out of sight – and I’d seen five in the space of two days at that point, and killed four of them. I don’t know why I was suddenly able to get close enough to the fifth one to take him outside (versus killing with a Swiffer from many feet away), but I did, and I haven’t seen anybody since.

    None of which is to say you shouldn’t spider-proof your own home. I may lose it and kill again, myself, it’s hard to know.

    Okay, I end this lengthy comment now. Hope you have a good weekend.

  4. Nanette

    10:41 pm on June 1st, 2009 4

    Now I feel guilty all over again!

    I always *try* to remember the catch and release outside type thing for spiders, but my instinctive reaction (blam!) is just too quick, sadly.

    Hope your weekend was good, too.

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