Quirk

Here is another of my quirks: earthworms. After moderate to heavy rains, the parking lot at my place of work fills with earthworms sprawled in various forms of pose, as if waiting for a photographer to snap a few centerfold shots of them. The worms are, in reality, fleeing the natural features of the nearby landscaping due to the production of carbonic acid in the soil following rainstorms. The carbonic acid, at a minimum, is a kind of earthwormy drug. At a maximum, the acid may kill them.

My quirk is specifically this: I feel compelled to save the lives of at least a dozen worms following any rainstorm. If caught by the sun in our lot, they will certainly perish. So, after arriving at work this morning, firing up my computer and brewing coffee, I went back out to the after-rain asphalt and began flicking worms back onto the grass.

I have, on occasion, been caught in the act of saving worms by coworkers. “What in the hell are you doing?” I recall one of my male coworkers asking on such an instance.

“I am saving lives,” I answered.

“They are worms.”

“Yup, had that figured early on.”

“Worms,” he repeated changing the word from a pea to an anvil.

“Yeah, I can’t help it.”

That is the deal—I cannot stop myself. A quirk. You don’t embrace them. They embrace you.

--Mitchell Hegman