July 29, 2002

Today is the day to get your mansion green.

I was watching "The Simpsons" last night and caught a very funny episode, about a fictional animal called the "screamapillar," a caterpillar that screams a lot, dies from low-self-esteem and is sexually attracted to fire.

This reminds me of another animal that ought to be fictional, but sadly, it isn't, and that is the Snakehead fish. This is a fish that originated, I believe, in Asia (I am not doing any fact-checking right now so my facts may not be so factual). Not only is it horrendously ugly and eats all types of fish, thus totally screwing with the ecosystem, but it also can WALK ON LAND. Pretty far. I want to say that I've heard it can walk several miles onland, but that may be wrong, so we'll just go with that it can last longer onland than I can spend time jogging.

See, I hate fish. I don't usually enjoy eating them and I don't like them as creatures; I think they're usually ugly and dumb-looking and slimy and stinky and they poo weird. So it's horrifying to imagine that conceivably one day I could be visiting somebody in Washington DC and oops, stop the car, a fish is crossing the street.

Anyway, then I received further information which I will not look up for my own edification, but merely take as gospel, and that is that fisherman are singing the praises of this new type of worm that comes from Vietnam (or something like that.) This worm, apparently, is pink, has gajillions of legs, like a, uh, gajillopede, and can be cut up into several hundred worms because it's five feet long.

Now, there are two things you ought to know about me: one, that I hate worms. Except for maybe the cute green inchworm, I cannot tolerate a worm, whether it's dead, alive, on a hook, helping the environment, what have you. Two: I am five-foot-four. So the concept of a worm that is almost as tall as I am is indeed horrific. If, for some reason, this monster worm and I should ever have to go head-to-head, it has a good chance of winning, because while I have four inches on it, it has a lot more legs than I do, and if you cut it into many pieces, apparently it just becomes many other viable worms, whereas I'm pretty useless if you cut me into many pieces.

See, this is what happens when you recycle too much, get hybrid cars, and save the whales: while you're not looking, Mother Nature strikes back with horrific new installments.