Being one who likes to have
a good dig in the garden and stir the compost occasionally, I’ve always
believed that worms love a dark moist dirty environment. They love it, they thrive
on it. Why then, when we’ve just had an inch of rain in just over twenty-four
hours, would the local worms be abandoning their natural habitat and heading
inside to get out of the rain?
I’ve been cleaning our local
public toilets for a long time, and this phenomenon seems to keep recurring in
the Ladies Loo. Not in the Gents, just the Ladies. Today there were twenty three
shriveled up worm carcasses littering the floor. Some only made it in the front
door, while others had expended a lot more energy before discovering wandering
into a sheltered place with a dry floor was fraught with danger. Not sure what
goes on in a worm brain, but as a consequence of their misguided exploit into
unknown territory, their moist little bodies simply didn’t have the wherewithal
to backtrack to safety.
What is the attraction of
the ‘Ladies’ I wonder? There’s a strip of grass outside the Gents, but admittedly
the grassed area outside the Ladies does slope downwards somewhat, but not so
much that the rain would wash them in there. I guess the heavy rain brought
them out of their hidey-holes and the gradient gave momentum to the direction
of their overnight exploration. With visions of returning with tales of high
adventure and discovery, little did they know leaving the safety of home turf
would be their demise.
Wonder if there’s a lesson
to be learned here, but I must admit heading out on a daring escapade does
sound a lot more exciting than doing the same old thing day in, day out.
Maybe you just shouldn’t do
it on a cold rainy night.
Worms taking refuge
met their predetermined fate
in the Ladies Loo
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