Slithering Slights

 

Oooh! Gross! Was he ever! A slimy, grimy, six inch long – inch wide – ooey, gooey, yucky, worm. You could see right thru him! Bauaa! Eauu! His heart beating, lungs moving, dirt digesting – everything! Yuck! Yuck! Yuck! Was he ever ugggggly! Terribly smelly too – whew! He smelled like an old pair of socks that had never been washed! Or left on top of some heater to mold & fester! Grosssss! You couldn’t get within a block of him without your eyes watering from the smell! Oh my!

Sid, the worm – didn’t have any friends, he refused to put things he was playing with away, constantly broke things & didn’t even care. He didn’t give a hoot about anything, including bathing. Sid left a trail of dirt & slime everywhere he went, so of course nobody wanted Sid to come to their place.

Worms don’t have any teeth or hair – so he didn’t have to brush either of them, but, he could have slithered thru a puddle every now & again – except Sid didn’t care. Dirt & grass & some kind of scurvy slime coated him. Eauu!

Besides being filthy & smelly – Sid was lazy, totally. He lived alone since he matured; I guess that’s no wonder, as who would want to live with him? Even Sid’s parents had got fed up with his slovenly habits & asked him to leave. Sid wouldn’t even do simple things, like pick up after himself or do any dishes. He was so lazy that he wouldn’t even make himself something to eat. He’d just lie on the floor & yell for his mom to feed him. What a pain it was looking after a grown worm like Sid! Being asked to leave shouldn’t have been a surprise to him, but it was. Sid was totally bummed out about it.

He couldn’t understand why nobody liked him. Sid was very smart, in some ways – but he just didn’t see that he was so mean & grumpy that no one ever wanted to that out, they never wanted to stick around that long. He just figured that everybody was an idiot, besides him, of course. Mad all the time, unhappy I think – Sid kicked dogs & cats if they were unlucky enough to cross his path. He did mean things to people. Sid teased young children, played cruel tricks on everyone he came in contact with. Sid was not a very nice worm at all. He never smiled, unless some elderly person slipped on the sidewalk or something similar. Sid just cruelly grinned & slithered away. Sid was a real nasty piece of work, why he wouldn’t even greet other worms that slithered by.

In a nutshell – Sid was a nasty, nasty worm. He didn’t visit any of his many relatives, he couldn’t be bothered. Consequently – Sid spent a lot of time alone. He got bored – a lot, as Sid wasn’t a very exciting person .He often slithered around town to see what new thing he could complain about. On one day, Sid decided to slither on down to the open aired market place & maybe get a few laughs at other people’s expense. On his journey Sid stopped to watch a overturned snail trying to right itself on the street. It was extremely amusing to see the snail’s legs kicking away, but then the thing started bellowing like a sick cow.

‘Help – help, don’t just stand there watching me struggle you buffoon – help me!’

Being called a buffoon, Sid promptly started slithering away. Besides, all this yelling was getting on his nerves.

Snod, the snail – couldn’t believe this. He had never seen anyone act like this before. How rude! How can anyone just ignore the pleas of another for help, what kind of person was this? This was just outrageous to Snod. But thinking that the worm might not have heard him, as he was fairly small – Snod tried again, as loudly as he could this time.

‘You, hey you – can you hear me?’ Snod shouted.

‘I require some help here. Could you please help me?’ Snod pleaded, as he couldn’t get upright otherwise.

‘Please, won’t you please help me – please?’

Upset that he’d been put in this awkward position, Sid paused to consider this. After all, it really wouldn’t take him out of his way – or be really hard or anything – it’s just that nobody had ever helped him. Sid couldn’t decide if he should bother helping the snail.

‘Please buddy – it won’t take much, just a little nudge is all I need.’

Something inside Sid decided to help the snail, then he wouldn’t have to waste any more time with it & he could go on to enjoy his day. Reluctantly – Sid slid over to give the snail a shove, not even a gentle push – but a big one that just about turned poor Snod right over again. In reaching down to shove Snod – Sid realized that the snail stunk to high heaven. Sid couldn’t get away fast enough now & he started slithering off at once.

‘You stink, why you don’t take a bath.’ Sid shouted over his shoulder.

‘You don’t smell so good yourself, why don’t you take a bath.’ Snod shouted back.

‘Boy, you’re sure nice to someone who helped you; I ought to have just left you flailing around.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.’ Remarked  Snod.

‘I couldn’t have asked for a more rude helper either.’ Snod sharply retorted.

‘It’s too bad that somebody nice couldn’t have come by, maybe a good person who actually wanted to help someone else.’ Snod continued to yell at the departing Sid. Worms can’t move very fast. Well, neither can snails – really. So it took a long time for Sid to slither out of ear shot. This was too much though, the snail was saying that he wasn’t a good person – how rude!

‘Hey now, don’t say that – I helped you didn’t I?’ Snapped the angry Sid.

‘You started it! If you hadn’t of been so rude!’

‘Me! I’m not being rude – I’m just telling it like it is!’

‘Me too!’

‘Okay – I’ll stop being rude if you do.’

‘Okay – I’ll stop being rude if you do.’

‘Quit copying me.’

‘Okay – I’ll quit copying you.’ Snod snorted in a kind of amusement.

‘Truce & now I’m going.’ Sid began slithering off again.

‘Hey – wait up. Can I join you? I really have nothing much to do today.’ See, Snod kept to himself too, as far as he was concerned – the entire world’s people, everyone but him – were kind of stupid. So he stayed to himself & didn’t have that much to do with anyone.

This kind of surprised Sid, nobody ever wanted to be with him. Sort of startled, he said,…

‘Uh, hmm, yeah I guess. For a while I guess it’d be okay. Are you sure you want to do that though?’ Secretly Sid was kind of pleased that anyone wanted to spend any time with him – this wasn’t a usual thing at all.

‘Sure, why not.’ Snod said as he finally caught up with the slow moving Sid. He was secretly happy to be with someone else too. Snod spent most days by himself. I guess they were both kind of lonely.

The two introduced themselves to each other & off they went to stake out a place to watch other movers & shakers of the earth. There they kept up a running commentary of all the passersby.

After a while, the two of them shared their individual problems with each other. Sid told how nasty everyone was to him & he just couldn’t figure out why that was. Then Snod proposed the idea that everyone was jealous of him because he was so smart, because he happened to read quite a bit – Snod figured that made him some kind of genius. It’s true that lots of reading does make you smart, but not smarter than everyone else. After all someone had to write the books Snod read.

Not wanting to disagree with his new friend so he went away, Sid hemmed & hawed & finally mumbled out,…

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s the way it really is. Do you think that maybe others don’t want to be around us, not because we’re so smart that we’re off putting, but maybe because we don’t smell very good?’

Sid couldn’t help noticing that Snod smelled & Snod said that he smelled, so it only made sense, sort of.

Snod thought about this a very long time & then finally said,…

‘Do you think we should go take baths?’

‘I don’t know, what do you think?’

‘Let’s go – I know a pond we can use.’ Snod oozed away in a trail of slime. Sid followed.

They cleaned themselves & then returned to their criticizing post on the corner.

‘I can’t believe this will make any real difference.’ Sid proclaimed.

‘After all, being clean is a surface thing; I’m sure people care more about what’s on your insides.’

‘If you smell bad though & are all dirty all the time, who’s going to want to get close enough to you to find out how smart you are, or how nice you are – or anything?’

‘That’s true.’ Sid agreed as another worm sidled up next to him & asked if he could sit with them. Sid couldn’t believe that others were coming up to talk to them too, other snails , more worms. This was all too much for his brain to consider. He’d never thought of things this way before. Sid even volunteered to help some other worms move a pile of grass.

Soon Sid & Snod were friends – they could often be seen sliming around town together. Eventually they each realized that they were lonely & moved in together. It wasn’t perfect; they still argued & disagreed about some things. They figured out – together, that if they sprinkled their actions with a little kindness & they kept relatively clean that others didn’t mind them so much. Heck, they even made a few other friends. They’d also learned that it was best to keep your living area clean, otherwise bugs were attracted & made frequent visits to your house & nobody likes bugs in their house.

Sid & Snod will find out lots of things as they mature – but together they learned that togetherness is a good thing.