True Love

We have a beautiful strawberry patch that my husband has lovingly tended over the past three summers. Last year it was okay. It gave us some delicious yet tiny berries.

Last fall, Tom went out and weeded and pruned the plants, hoping for a better yield of berries this year.

And his efforts paid off. This year we’re getting a lot of big berries. They’re awesome. The berries taste so much better than the ones you buy in the store.

Last night, after picking two bowls full of strawberries, I was standing at the sink, washing them and pulling the stems off.

I’d gotten through maybe a third of the berries when I saw it. There it was, on one of my berries, wriggling and moving.

It was a tiny green worm.

Ick! Ewwwwww. I tossed the strawberry back in the bowl and jumped back from the sink, shuddering and grimacing.

Tom standing right beside me warming up his dinner. He glanced in the bowl and then at me.

“Worm?” he asked, though he already knew the answer because that is the only thing that makes me react like that.

I shuddered again and nodded.

He rolled his eyes good naturedly and filled a pan with water. He put the strainer full of strawberries in the water and worked them around, looking for the little beast.

I took a deep breath and said, “I can do that. I can be brave.”

He glanced over at me and smiled, “No you can’t.”

He was right. The very fact that I KNEW there was a worm in that pan of water meant there was no way I could put my hands back in there.

Tom pulled the strawberries out one at a time, inspected them and put them into a new bowl from which I withdrew them to destem them.

When he got all the strawberries out, he dumped the water from the pan and pointed to the sink, where the water was gently draining. There it was, the nasty green worm, circling the drain.

“He’s already dead,” Tom informed me. “The water usually takes care of that for you.”

I thanked him for his heroics and finished taking the stems off the strawberries.

I’m telling you, that is the definition of love to me. The man will fend off vicious, disgusting, tiny green worms so his wife doesn’t have to. He’s quite obviously meant for me.