Flight of the worms

Every man has a disgusting habit.

Mine keeps worms.

This is actually admirable, when compared with, say... watching sports. Or building little boats in jars.

To be more precise, he vermi-composts. Which means that there's a box of worms and dirt in our kitchen. The worms eat eggshells and vegetables and make them into dirt. He lavishes attention on his worms. They love him back.

Every once in a while, the worms start to leave their warm, dirty home. Maybe it's a bit too damp in there. Kind of like the Fraggles, they -- not all of them, maybe a dozen at a time -- go exploring across our kitchen and I find them in the morning, dried up within a 15-foot radius of their dirt box.

I know, it's disgusting. But you get used to it. Sometimes they travel all the way to the bathroom before contorting into dry, little husks.

Now that I have a one-year-old, I'm even more vigilant about hunting down outriders. I can just see Finn's pincer fingers reaching out slowly. He has one eye out for approaching adults. And the other eye on the worm's journey to his pointy little half open toddler mouth -- the mouth of curiosity, the mouth of delight.

Sometimes I come into the room and Finn has this crooked smirk and I know he's enjoying forbidden fruit. Usually something he dropped there earlier. But you can never be sure...

Now I'm going to go off topic. Back in the cave, there weren't any highchairs. My theory is that babies eat off the floor because some ancient part of their brain thinks that this will help them survive.

Picture a tribe of really hungry people, eating something disgusting and there is little Finnegan, crawling around under their legs, picking up whatever looks interesting. Getting nutrients and learning about roast zebra or whatever.

I'm not sure where vermi-composting fits into all this. Except maybe back in the cave, men thought that finding a disgusting habit would help them survive. I'm still working on this one...