CRAWLERS BY NIGHT   

A spring night sky is pouring rain, while washing the white salt dust left from a long bone chilling winter, and a wind howling like a wolf.  Rick woke from a deep sleep to a bedroom full of light from a flash of lightning bolting through the window which was followed by a very loud crash of thunder. Rick was having a nightmare. Sitting up in fury fighting off that big fish he thought was eating him, he laid his head back down to sleep a little while longer.

Upon waking up, he laid there for a while listening to the rhythm of the falling rain. Rick reached for the TV remote and the phone started ringing. On the third ring, he answered the phone with a “YO” after a loud yawn and a lengthy stretch.

Tim, his best friend greeted Rick with a slaphappy voice asking, “Wuuz up!” In a fumbling voice that just woke up, Rick replied pretending to be overjoyed, “Hi Tim!”

Rick proceeded to tell Tim about his dream about this big fish was eating him and why. It was because he packed and handled thousands of worms working at one of his family’s bait shops earlier that day. Rick proceeded to relate to Tim that he dreamed he was fishing at the Wagon Wheel down at the Lower Niagara River , when he saw a swarm of worms flying toward him and clung to him and caused him to fall in the water. All a sudden, out of nowhere this fish, bigger than him started to eat him. He said he woke up fighting this big scary fish off in 15 feet of water.

Tim wasn’t too concerned hearing about this “bad dream” and he said to Rick, “It’s supposed to rain all day today and with last night’s storm, the ground should be ideal conditions for “night crawling.”

Rick agreed and said, “Yes! See you at 9 in front of my house.”

Rick ran downstairs to chow down on a bowl of cereal and then prepare for tonight’s fortune.  Gulping the milk down what was left over from the bowl of cereal. Finding that special “crawler by night flashlight,” He strapped it to his head making the hands free to grab these worms that come out on rainy nights. To keep these slimy creature’s from escaping back to their hole, he had a can of sawdust stored in a coffee can kept in his garage, By dousing your fingers in the saw dust, it serves as a nice grip on those slimy night crawlers. Rick got his rain coat out of the garage to wear for tonight’s slimy adventure.

When Tim showed up they began picking their fortune off a good rain-soaked ground. Starting to pick the backyard, they eventually pick their way out to the front lawns in the neighborhood.

 The night crawlers already picked were combined and kept healthy by gently dumping them in a container Rick prepared with worm bedding he kept sheltered from the rain. The worm bedding provided the necessary nutrition these worms needed to stay healthy for the fisherman’s hook.

Capturing hundreds of worms in Rick’s backyard and throughout the neighborhood, they both settled in an area that ended their slimy adventure. This area had bushes and under these overgrown bushes offered no grass interfering with their success. This area was the goldmine that supported most of the night’s profits for them. The picking was very easy due to a drenched ground.

The night ended with 1,233 night crawlers captured and the sun and the stiff wind dried up the ground the next day.

One of their 1,223 worms lured a huge fish and it ended up in the frying pan. Rick wondered if that could have been the fish that tried to eat HIM! 

THE END

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