Ticking Away

We spent a little time out in the sticks last weekend in West Lincoln, toward the Niagara Region. We were warned that there were ticks in the fields but when in Rome, one roams. 

We were about halfway home when Derek, who was driving, calmly asked, “Would you remove the tick that’s on my arm?”  Suppressing the urge to scream, I pulled off the walking – thankfully not embedded – tick and dropped it on the console where I proceeded to club it with my fist! It turns out that ticks are fist resistant. Derek said I was saying DIE DIE DIE with each strike. I don’t remember, but I could almost see a little middle finger on one of its creepy legs raised in defiance. As I smashed in vain, Derek calmly asked, ‘Could you get this tick that’s on my other arm?” Tick number two was smaller, and strolling toward his hand.

Ticks are disgusting. They refuse to die even when pounded repeatedly and they freak you out because of their tendency to bury their heads in your flesh and burrow into it, if you don’t find them first. The ticks I removed from my husband, feeling like one monkey plucking fleas off of another, weren’t the type that carry Lyme disease. Those are black-legged ticks. This, as an example, is a black-legged, or deer tick, taken by a photographer named Spex.

They are tiny. They’re also closely related to the spider which makes my hatred for them even more understandable. We don’t have photos of our ticks because I was too busy trying to kill them. When I couldn’t do that, I was out of options, so they both went out the passenger window. I realized later that I may have introduced ticks to a new area of the province, but not likely. They’re pretty much everywhere now. I made Derek pull off the highway and undergo a tick inspection, shake out his clothing, hair, aura and soul. Freaked out? A little. 

To avoid ticks, you’re advised to cover up and keep your clothing tucked in, but they will still jump aboard and continue to crawl upward until they find skin, which is why ticks are often found on the head. The surest way to avoid them is to load up on canned foods, stay indoors, and seal the windows with duct tape. It seems like the only reasonable response.