Past Jobs-Night Crawlers for Sale

Back in the day our family used to have a night crawler (a.k.a. slimy worms) business.  Basically we sold worms out of a fridge in our garage to fisherman and whoever else might need a $1.75 a dozen container of little crawlers.  The whole family was in on the job. 

My mom, dad, brother, and sister picked the worms late at night after it would rain from a family friends' farm. (Miraculously for all the years of crawler selling, I was able to avoid this part of the business.)  Supposedly picking worms entailed holding a flashlight in your mouth, crawling around in pig poo, and grabbing as many worms as you could.  I would guess that this adventure would have included lots of yelling (my dad was rather intense about picking fast and no one else seemed to share his passion) but thankfully the mouth-holding-the-flash-light took care any would be verbal fights.

The other side of the worm business was selling which I wasn't able to escape. This is how it worked.  Someone would ring the doorbell, my siblings and I would fight about whose turn it was, and then the one who wasn't in tears would answer the door.  All we had to do was count a dozen or two, get the money, poke a few holes in the lid of the container, and call it a deal.  But back in those days that was a LOT of work, and you had to touch the worms. 

When we weren't home, we hung a sign on our door that read, "Night Crawlers a $1.75 per dozen. In the green fridge in the garage. We go on the honor system so please leave your money in the bowl on the bench.Thanks for your business." Our favorite thing was to come home to a bowl full of money knowing that we didn't have to count out the dozens or make change for any fishermen and women that day. 

Our worm business was a hit, and we were able to pay for our summer vacation to a lake in Minnesota from our worm fund.  Plus we learned about keeping night crawlers in captivity, all the hot spots to fish in NW IA, how to count change, the multiples of 12, and what a baker's dozen was...so those of you who are laughing about our hick-ish business, you can buckle it up :)