Tick Magnet

Until we had Floyd, I had never even seen a tick. I mean I knew what it was as soon as I saw one- but I'd never had an up close and personal encounter with a tick before ol F-Bomb. Now it's an almost daily occurrence.

Last summer the boys went through a paintball kick. They would go in the Christmas tree field behind our place and play for hours. I would sit on my back porch with a book and a glass of wine and laugh at the girlie shrieks and cries of pain echoing out of the woods "OWWWWWWWWWW!" "Dammit!" "Enough already!" Hilarious. Eventually they would all wander out of the woods, hot, sweaty and covered in paint. One evening, I finished my wine and decided to swing by the garage to say hello and make fun of them for being pansy's and yelling "ow" so many times. What I saw however, was a bunch of half naked men picking ticks off each other. These were kids I'd known practically forever so there wasn't much embarrassment about me seeing them in their under-roos. Then one of the boneheads asked why I didn't play. My answer? "Who's going to pick ticks off me?" Yeah, still haven't played paintball.

So last night I fell asleep with the door for my room open. I woke up to the sound of someone or something in my room. I sat up super fast, ready for anything. All I succeeded in doing was scaring the crap out of my poor dog who just wanted to come cuddle with me. Well this morning I woke up with an itch on my belly. Half asleep I rolled over just enough to scratch it. It was a FREAKING TICK crawling on me. Can you tell me a worse way to wake up in the morning than by finding a tick on you? Yeah, there aren't many. My friend Lenny is a vet tech and says this is just a really bad year for ticks.

Well, her name isn't really Lenny. I just call her that after the character from Of Mice and Men. You know, the one that kills the mouse, the puppy and the woman because they are so soft and he just loves them too much? Yeah. We also have a friend I call Darla from Finding Nemo- the girl who was so excited to have a fish she shakes the hell out of the bag yelling "FISHY FISHY FISHY" and eventually kills the fish? Yup, those'r my friends.

So anyway, thanks to my Tick Magnet, I've gotten more intimate knowledge of ticks than I ever wanted or needed. Hands down, the worst part of owning a dog is picking ticks off him. The best part of owning a dog is my brother is also half owner- so I make him pick the ticks off. Its good for him, builds character.