Worms on the Sidewalk

Worms on the Sidewalk* ** * * * * * * * April showers bring May flowers, But March rain brings worms on the sidewalk. Several theories explain this, but I read it's not to avoid drowning. They breathe through their skin and can absorb oxygen from the water. It might be that worms see this as an opportunity for speedier above ground travel – a worm sightseeing tour facilitated by the moisture of rain. It’s a lot faster that digesting your way inch by inch from one dark place to another. It might be that worms are seeking to mate – worm speed-dating on concrete in their peculiar simultaneous hermaphrodite-ness. Worms have both worm sex organs which make that sidewalk romance, uh, unusual, in a, you know, worm coitus sort of way. Or they might mistake pounding rain as the vibrations of a predator --and move up and out into the great beyond where many meet their Maker – or an opportunistic Robin. I’m assuming that most worms complete that four or five foot journey across the sidewalk and burrow down again at the earliest opportunity. So it's not a mass suicide. The dawdlers, though, get caught in an object lesson on Darwinism. We don’t know for sure which theory is correct. And worms don’t why they do what they do either. A worm brain isn’t that big. Worms live life without being aware they are alive: no pleasure, no sense of worm fulfillment, no sense of posterity. Worms do not have existential crises. Or even worry much. By the way, while the upper reaches of the lifespan of a worm in the wild may be only a few months, a worm in a protected environment – like working worms in a composting industry may live as long as 8 years. It is widely accepted that none of the 6,000 worm species golf although the same rain that moves worms to sidewalks also moves them to golf greens where they are often caught by emerging sunshine midway on their journey and end up as shriveled twigs you have to move so they don’t deflect the ball when you putt. I’ve tossed partially shriveled worms from golf greens back to the longer grass thinking they might have a chance at survival, but probably not.