The Sad Ending of Sandy's "Corn Worm" (Contest Winners and New Contest!)

The other day my daughter Sandy and I plopped my grandson (Linkie Dink/Lincoln) in his car seat and meandered down to Wagner Farms in Corrales to see if we could pick up some peaches and apples.  We were hoping for pumpkins, too…though Wagner's doesn't usually put them out until the last weekend in September.

We arrived to find the delicious aroma of roasting green chili and the the beautiful autumn red of chili ristras hanging everywhere.  Mmmm!  Heaven!  Now, as Linkie Dink and I were choosing some perfectly juicy, fuzzy, delicious peaches, Sandy decided she was going to get  a few ears of sweet corn for supper.

Well, after Linkie Dink and I had chosen some peaches, some apples, some tomatoes…I noticed Sandy was still over by the corn.  So we strolled over (Lincoln ran, of course) to see what was up.  Well, what was up was this:  Sandy had never (to her memory) picked through organically grown ears of corn…which just might have had a caterpillar or two hiding inside.  Thus, she was very carefully and very slowly opening the husks to check to see if each ear was a good one or not.  At first, she was a little grossed out, but when I reminded her that half the fun of shucking corn was the eerie anticipation that you might come across a 'worm', she was suddenly overtaken by the sense of adventure, and actually chose a couple of ears that had 'worm' evidence.

When we got back to her house, her hunky husband began shucking the corn and did indeed come across a 'worm'!  It was hysterical to watch, because as he continued shucking, he accidentally pulled some husk off the ear a little to quickly and the worm went flying off the ear of corn and onto Sandy's arm!  She was screaming and laughing and Soren was laughing…even as he heroically removed the worm from her arm.

Well, to make a long story longer…when it was suggested that they put the worm down the garbage disposal I was mortified!  Therefore, naturally I turned into my mother (as we all do) and suggested they keep it as a pet!  I was reminded of the time I found a tomato worm in my mom's garden and made a little habitat for it in a shoebox and kept it as a bet for quite some time.  Therefore, Sandy (also turning into her mother at that moment…it's a generational thing) decided she would indeed keep the 'corn worm' as a pet. She put the tip of the ear of corn the worm had been munching on in a plastic leftovers container, dropped in some corn silk, and VOILA!…a new pet was born!

Well, the pet worm was doing very well.  Over the next couple of days he nearly doubled in size!  We were all amazed.  And then it happened…one night, just as I was getting ready for bed, I received the following text message:

"Soren killed my worm!!!"

Yes it's true.  Having misunderstood a conversation Sandy and I had had in his presence earlier, Soren had thought Sandy was tired of the pet worm and…well…here's Sandy's blog that appeared the next morning:

Rest in Peace, Very Hungry Caterpillar

I had my very own Hungry Caterpillar.  But Soren killed him just now.  I found him in a corn husk while husking corn.  He looked like this:

I put him in a container to look at him that day. Soren said I was morbid.  I don't think he had the right word down.  But after the weird egg incident I can blame him.  Then I put the bad end of the corn in their with my little hungry caterpillar and that's when it began.  He started eating that corn like crazy…and he literally got fatter by the day!  Just like the very hungry caterpillar!  He was soooo fat today and I wanted to see if he would get fatter…but…that was after I had told Soren to get rid of it a few days ago…apparently he didn't get the updated memo…that I wanted to either keep him to watch him get fatter or let him go in nature.

Therefore, I walked in to the kitchen just now only to find the container missing and Soren doing dishes.

"Where's my caterpillar?" I exclaimed.  He looked at me with a guilty expression and pointed to the sink.

"Where is he??"

Finally he admitted to putting him in the garbage disposal.  "He isn't dead yet.  He's just in there."  Soren pushed the disposal on for a split second then off.

I felt bad for the little caterpillar.  What an awful death.  I felt sick.  "Hurry up and finish him off!  I can't think of him being partially cut up and in pain!"

And so I write this to the sound of the garbage disposal killing my caterpillar friend.  :-(  I know.  I am weird.

Poor Sandy!  I know how she feels!  I had some gerbils once that were brother and sister and had litter after litter of babies.  Eventually the little babies began to show signs of having severe birth defects so my dad put that litter in a brown paper lunch sack, took them out on the back porch and stomped on them to put them out of their misery.  (I sort of  lost my interest in gerbils after that.)  So to have your pet corn worm chewed up in the garbage disposal would be very traumatizing.

Therefore, as a homage to Sandy's sad little corn worm experience (and yet, pets and their deaths do help children to learn to deal with loss), I'm having a blog contest this week!  Yep!  The contest is for not only a bag of yummy yummy candy corn, and some favorite popcorn treats, but also for a Fall/Halloween type movie (DVD) that is one of my favorites to watch this time of year…The Lady in White!  Ooo I have loved this movie for years!  I will warn you that it has some strong themes that I would NOT recommend for young children!  (It is PG-13.) However, our family really likes it because it's so kind of creepy, nostalgic and autumn-ish!  SO just leave a comment here…let's make it a message from you to Sandy about the loss of her corn worm, and you'll be entered to win a care package which includes candy corn, popcorn treats and the DVD of The Lady in White, okay?  (And Sandy things she's weird?)

Also, Megan E. and Lori Nelson…you two won contests!  (See yesterday's blog!)  E-mail your addresses to me at marcialmcclure@cs.com so I can get you prizes in the mail to you!  Fun Fun Fun!