Eating Worms

This is another epic tale of my son and his adventures. This one involves his crafty older sister. I've told you about his strange pets, Sassy and Hank, and I've told you about his utter delight with a very strange present, but I have never told you how susceptible he was to his big sister's suggestions.

When he was a baby she was so disappointed that he wasn't a girl that she dressed him in a pink robe and taped paper hair all over his bald head. He endured it with extreme stoicism. When he was older she dressed him as a cheerleader. He was quite enthusiastic about that one. One year at Christmas she dressed him as a shepherd and they sat in the laundry basket sleigh with our dog George being dressed up as a reindeer (cross referenced Christmas, but that's okay, it was cute). All of her antics were met by him with nothing more than a slight frown which soon slipped into an expression of resignation. She was his boss, he was born to do as she said.

The particular incident I am about to tell you about had me completely grossed out, but laughing, but curious to see where it would go, then grossed out again.

My daughter, in her infinite wisdom, brought her brother a worm. A common earthworm, nothing more. He was slightly confused but accepted the gift graciously, nonetheless.

She then dared him to eat it.

He refused.

She prodded, cajoled and used all of her powers of persuasion. I could see that he was weakening, so I told him DON'T YOU DARE. He again refused. She again prodded, manipulated and begged. He again weakened. By this time I could see where this was going. I knew earthworms wouldn't hurt him, but ewwwwwwwwwww....

At this point I was pretty sure she would never convince him to eat the thing. But then he did the unthinkable.

He told her he would eat it if she would cook it for him.

That then started the begging and whining on her part, directed at me this time, to allow her to cook the worm for my son. I refused. She prodded, cajoled and drove me insane. I weakened. She prodded some more. I told her she was not allowed to use my good frying pan. That inspired her.

She ran into the house and dug through my pots and pans until she found one that was never used anymore, one that was scratched and ruined and needed to be thrown away. (DAMMIT why didn't I throw that thing away before then??)

She then commenced to frying up that earthworm for my son to eat. He turned a little green, but had already made the promise. She brought that fried worm out to my son (we were outdoors at the time), and said, "Here!" He looked at it, looked at me, I was saying, "Don't do it, don't do it don't do it..." but he had promised.

He then told her that he couldn't do it. She took it back into the house, and in a burst of creativity that impresses me to this day, came out with that worm in a hot dog bun with ketchup on it.

He ate it. He didn't die.

She was happy and he was smug.