Cthulhu Moment...
I've been reading a lot of Lovecraft lately, getting back to my roots as it were. All the classics: "The Call Of Cthulhu", "The Rats In The Walls", "At The Mountains Of Madness", "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" - along with my personal favorite Lovecraft story of all time "The Doom That Came To Sarnath". So I've had Lovecraft on the brain, to set the stage.
naamah_darling and I were going out late Friday night, in search of some food. It was raining, and so, as I opened the door, I said something along the lines of "Come with me into the dripping, lightless gulfs of the outer darkness where we shall caper among the crypts of fallen kings with the squamous kindred of the damned." She snorted a snort that says 'you've been reading too much Lovecraft' and brushed me aside. "Stand aside, I am not afraid," she said as she passed me and stepped out onto the porch.
And then a scream of insane, soul-blasting horror shook the night! With a cry of the uttermost horror the fearless Naamah sprang back past me into the house. "You go!" she said, shaking. "I'm not going out there!"
I looked, and saw something so horrible, so mind-shatteringly awful, that I had to speak. "What? You mean the worms?"
There were worms. We get some fierce nightcrawlers around here, especially in the rain. The concrete steps of the porch were crawling with foot-long earthworms. There was one that must have been more like two feet, as his front end had vanished under a porch sculpture and he was still hanging out about 15 inches. Big worms. And the fearless, Mrs. The Terrible was petrified with The Squick to the point where she almost refused to come out, and in fact had a half-hour attack of the willies after we got back. Both times I had to range ahead and sort of herd the worms out of her path.
Worms.
I don't get it. They're cold and slimy, yeah, but they have no teeth, there is not a thing they can do to hurt anyone. They are even less offensive than slugs, especially the five-inch variety we get that emerges to devour the worm carcasses at night. Worms are harmless, and I don't get why they freak her out so bad. I swear, a couple of foot-long worms and she turns into a total girl.
But it was funny, with the Lovecrafty timing and all.
naamah_darling and I were going out late Friday night, in search of some food. It was raining, and so, as I opened the door, I said something along the lines of "Come with me into the dripping, lightless gulfs of the outer darkness where we shall caper among the crypts of fallen kings with the squamous kindred of the damned." She snorted a snort that says 'you've been reading too much Lovecraft' and brushed me aside. "Stand aside, I am not afraid," she said as she passed me and stepped out onto the porch.
And then a scream of insane, soul-blasting horror shook the night! With a cry of the uttermost horror the fearless Naamah sprang back past me into the house. "You go!" she said, shaking. "I'm not going out there!"
I looked, and saw something so horrible, so mind-shatteringly awful, that I had to speak. "What? You mean the worms?"
There were worms. We get some fierce nightcrawlers around here, especially in the rain. The concrete steps of the porch were crawling with foot-long earthworms. There was one that must have been more like two feet, as his front end had vanished under a porch sculpture and he was still hanging out about 15 inches. Big worms. And the fearless, Mrs. The Terrible was petrified with The Squick to the point where she almost refused to come out, and in fact had a half-hour attack of the willies after we got back. Both times I had to range ahead and sort of herd the worms out of her path.
Worms.
I don't get it. They're cold and slimy, yeah, but they have no teeth, there is not a thing they can do to hurt anyone. They are even less offensive than slugs, especially the five-inch variety we get that emerges to devour the worm carcasses at night. Worms are harmless, and I don't get why they freak her out so bad. I swear, a couple of foot-long worms and she turns into a total girl.
But it was funny, with the Lovecrafty timing and all.