There’s a long standing “joke”* with my dad that everyone should eat bugs to get their protein. To which both my mom and I cringe and squeel, shiver, and tell him to shut up. So, it was no surprise that when the hubs and I brought up the idea of vermiculture (worm composting), my dad’s automatic response was, “OH! And you can EAT them if we run out of beef!” To which my similarly icky husband said, “Ooh! Yeah! We could eat them!” And I launched into a head shaking that was probably felt from a mile away. At that moment, my mom scurried in from the kitchen, looking slightly peaked, to ask, “What?! What about worms?” To which I only responded with a, “Nothing. They’re nuts.”

Later in the day, my mom pulled me aside for a Starbucks run, which is code for, “We have to talk about something that we must be sneaky about, for no apparent reason.” The moment we got into the car, she very worriedly said, “So, tell me about this worm thing.” I barely got the words, “worms” and “ordered” out of my mouth before she interrupted. “Are you going to eat the worms? Because I heard him say you were going to eat the worms. If you guys are having trouble with groceries…”

I’m not sure whether her thinking we were so poor we were going to eat worms is hilarious or really, really sad. Either way, it took me about 20 minutes of interruptions and reassurances before I could convince her that we were not going to eat the worms, that our house wouldn’t smell like poop, and that we weren’t going to be living in filth and flies up to our knees. Although, to be honest, I still think she’s going to be popping over with groceries every week from now on, just so that her grandson doesn’t have to have worm stew for dinner.

*This gets a star because the word “joke” implies that the object is funny. It’s not.