365 Fried Worms

Day 2 of Week 8
Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Odd title, odder picture, huh?

Okay, lemme ‘splain.

Did you ever read the book, “How To Eat Fried Worms?” We read it as a class in 5th grade. A kid bets another kid that he can’t eat a worm every day for I think a month. There was a movie of that book not long ago, but I didn’t see it.

Many parts of that book that have really stuck in my brain. I guess I’m endorsing it as a really good book for preteens! One of the scenes that has stuck came to mind last night when I took this picture.

Near the end of the time of the bet, the better was seeing the bettee getting close to winning. As a “gesture of friendship,” he invited his friend to go to a baseball game with his family. At the game they feasted on ballpark food till they were stuffed, as young boys are apt to do. It was just before midnight when the boy who was on the worm diet realized that in all of the ballpark feasting and getting home a bit late, he forgot to eat his worm for the day! Recognizing the whole outing as a ruse to get him to forget to eat the worm and lose the bet, he took a raw worm, rode his bike to the streetlight, and under the glow of the streetlight proclaimed that he did NOT fall victim to the scheme and he was eating his worm. Them he swallowed it whole.

Great scene to have thriving in my brain for 32 years, huh? It was a baseball game. If they’d gone to a carnival, I wouldn’t have remembered it.

Anyway, yesterday it rained. Over a foot of snow has melted away in a couple of days, saturating the ground and then it rained. It rained, and rained, and rained. Then it rained some more.

I did a load of laundry. When I went down to exchange the loads I saw the water at the bottom of the steps! It was a small puddle that I stepped over, but there was water seeping in from the wall area near the steps. Then I saw water under the steps and going into the laundry room. I turned the light on. The edge of the carpet was wet, I stepped onto the carpeted area.

“Squish, squish.”

Yeah, the carpet was wet all right! It was wet under it so the water wasn’t visible until I stepped in it and my steps brought the water up. I started scanning the area. The night we found Kaline had been similar on the other side of the dividing wall, so most of the things stored down there are in plastic crates now. I wanted to make sure there were no paper boxes or items on the floor. I went back to see if I could tell where the water was coming from.

“Squish, squish”

The carpet was wetter the closer I got to the wall. Then I noticed that the water was more towards the wall that divided the basement and not in the corner. I really hadn’t looked into the uncarpeted main room next to the stairs.

“squish, squish”

I walked back to the washer area and peered around to the main room. I could see a bit of wetness and went into the room to turn on the light. As I got near the rope that turned on the light, the water was past the soles of my shoes and splashing!

“UGH!”

I clicked on the light. 2 paper boxes in the water! I managed to hoist one up onto a higher surface. The other one was too full and heavy for me to lift, so, I emptied the contents one piece at a time onto the tool bench. Did I mention that there was a huge sheet of web connecting the box to the wall?

::shudder::

Then I switched the laundry load into the dryer. By this time, the whole basement was so damp and my bad knee was just throbbing in pain and I opted to wait to do another load at a later time. I went up stairs and I called David, so he’d be prepared for it when he got home.

After David got home he took a look. Not as growly since he was prepared, but I forgot to put the bag of used cat littler up higher. It was wet. I went down with a plastic garbage bag. The main room was now a small glistening lake. And the shoreline of that lake was now just past the cat boxes! We had to bring at least one box up for the kids.

Then it was bedtime. I sat on the bed, with that “How To Eat Fried Worms” scene in my head. “My Project 365!” I couldn’t get either cat to stand still for a picture and when I tried to snap one of David, he sneered, rolled his eyes and turned into the bathroom before I could snap.

So, proclaiming that I was NOT missing a day in my project for a wet basement, I held that squirming camera in front of my face and clicked. There was my Wednesday Patch 365 shot.

Make that only 364 Fried Worms.