no worms for me

It all started on a dark, cold night.

She was anxious to discover what perverse critter had been chomping on the cherry tree’s leaves to the midribs. Oh how she trembled with anger as she flung on her coat and pulled on her moon boots. 

“Those buggers will pay,” she muttered under her steam-filled breath, stepping into the wilderness with gloved hands and her trusted weapon: the Hand Trowel.

Soon after, a high-pitched squeal was emitted followed by the words “gross” and “I’m scared”. On the way to the cherry tree, her path was blocked by vicious slugs of all lengths and colors. With trembling hands and a weak stomach, she slashed them to death with the Hand Trowel. No slug was spared. Not even the babies.

“I’m not done with you,” she said, walking past the other slugs that were weeping and hiding in fear. She decided to leave the rest of the slugs for the night. It was time to track down her original prey.

Armed with a flashlight and a bottle of insecticidal soap, she approached the cherry tree and gritted her teeth in fury and horror. Earwigs! There in the circular beam of her flashlight was a colony of earwigs gnawing hungrily at the leaves of the poor cherry tree. As quick as lightning, she started spraying them with the soap and they slipped off the leaves, hitting the grass with the sound of raindrops. She dashed to the pear tree and there they were too, drinking the nectar of the flowers and then ungraciously ripping off the petals. It was all too much for her. Feeling overwhelmed and defeated, she retreated.

It continued the next night, which was dark, cold, and rainy.

“All the tools you need to kill bugs is right there in your own home.”

With a slightly crazed look on her face, she poured dishwashing liquid, salt, and hot water into a small bucket.

“The salt is specially for you, slugs,” she thought deliriously. Swishing the deathly potion slightly, she then ventured outdoors. Her first target was the earwigs. With a flashlight and the bucket in one hand and the Hand Trowel in the other, she gently coaxed the little buggers to jump into the pool of death. One by one the earwigs fell: they never emerged from the foamy depths.

For the next hour, she stood patiently by the cherry and pear trees, searching and destroying, and feeling very sure that some of the earwigs that had missed the bucket were now crawling up her legs. When most of the earwigs were gone and her arms were sore from holding the bucket, she ventured to the slug hideouts and started killing them too. This time, all she had to do was pick them up (using the Hand Trowel) and drop them into the lethal potion.

With her mind singularly focused to kill every pest in sight, time flew by like a jet-propelled car. 

Eventually, she saw no more pests. With a weary sigh, she kept her weapons and left the bucket. She knew not how many she had killed. Some say on that night alone, she single-handedly reduced the earwig and slug population by half.

Others say that she killed a hundred earwigs and a hundred slugs. The only thing known is this: that night came to be known in history as The Great Earwig and Slug Massacre.

Footnote: the heroine in this story eventually started to use Tanglefoot to prevent the earwigs from climbing up the cherry and pear trees. She still had to kill slugs every now and then, but the use of Tanglefoot has freed up some of her time so she can watch Hulu at night instead of hunting in the cold and rain.

Disclaimer: All characters appearing in this work are real. Any resemblance to fictitious characters in works of literature, film, comics, and manga is purely coincidental.