Earlier today I decided to bring all of my houseplants to the kitchen and bathe them in a special homemade concoction. It’s cooled pasta water (leftover from dinner last night) mixed with cooled coffee (leftover from this morning). I happen to believe it’s a magical combination and love to do this for my plants once in a while. Then I rinse them off and comb out the brown leaves and feel fancy.

Today something weird happened as I was putting the nourished, shiny plants back in their decorative urns. And I hate to upset you, but it was disgusting. Ok. Deep breath.

I was just standing there in the kitchen, thinking My god I am genius! Why am I even taking these master gardener classes? I have got this under con-TROL. Then I flashed a gang symbol to my own reflection in the microwave door and did the Dougie.

Then I grabbed another soon-to-be-flourishing house plant and it happened.

I saw a long, thin, limp, not quite brown, shiny something very gross hanging from the delicate branches of a croton. I froze. I had just eaten some raw oatmeal with milk and strawberries, and that was all threatening to make a reappearance.

What. The. Heck.

“What is it???!!!” I shrieked too loudly to the empty house. But I couldn’t look away. My face was lowered to the kitchen counter, staring with disbelief at this organic but probably not living item draped across my plant like the weirdest Christmas tree garland ever. I was afraid to breathe, terrified of vomiting right there on the freshly bleached everything. Then I thought, Oh sweet granola, if it’s alive it could be playing dead and might at any moment spring out at me! This was easily the worst moment of my day.

I took a slow step backwards and raised myself upright, breathing deliberately but not blinking. Not looking away from the unidentified gross adornment.

Was it an earthworm? Had I disturbed a soil bed in one of the plants and tempted an extremely long and extremely thin earthworm out of hiding? If so, that was the most disgusting earthworm I have ever seen. So thin. So long. And no head or seams or anything! Eww.

Wait, maybe that not a worm. Maybe… Could it be spaghetti? I had, after all, used the starchy water from last night’s dinner, so maybe one stray noodle had stowed away. And maybe when I added coffee to the bowl it soaked into the noodle and turned it light brown. Maybe I had unknowingly poured the noodle onto my plant.

So I found a long grilling fork and investigated from a safe distance. (And no, I’m not afraid of worms, but if one is playing dead then it is probably afraid me. Scared creatures are scary.) It never responded to gentle prodding, and I could never see any body parts that guaranteed it’s a worm.

I also never got stronger confirmation that it was a noodle.

This whole situation really upset my day. Then when Handsome got home I showed it to him and he recoiled. “What the heck is it?? That is not a noodle! That’s a butt worm.”

Oh boy.

Our animals are healthy. We are healthy. This was becoming quite a problem.

What do you think, fair reader? Please vote. We need to know. Keep in mind that I snapped this photo after the unidentified gross adornment had been out of moisture for about two hours. When I first made the discovery, it was ever so slightly… plumper. Paler.

I don’t know what else to say. Stray pasta noodle? Earthworm on the Paleo diet? Or a butt worm? And while I don’t want to influence your vote, I did eat an almost raw bratwurst this weekend. Handsome has already googled the whole situation and cast his disconcerting vote.

Eww.