Ticked Off*

During this weekend's mildly disastrous camping trip, I got into a campfire discussion about ticks, and I realized that not only have I never had to remove one from my body, I have never even seen one.

Now, this might surprise native Minnesotans just as much as the fact that I've never set foot in the state of Iowa (it's not really necessary to pass through it going many places from Wisconsin, and you'd never set it as a final destination, right?), but ticks just aren't that common in the southern half of Wisconsin, where I've done most of my camping.

Now, I'd always assumed that if a tick did start burrowing into my scalp that I'd be able to feel it, and when I was informed that this was not the case, I got a little paranoid and started asking if pretty much any bug that crawled on (or near) me was a tick.

Everyone else around the fire had a story about being covered with dozens of them as a child or thinking their dad was trying to set fire to their head because of a tick, so I felt like a giant baby for being so worried about it, but I don't like an unknown enemy.

Anyway, ticks apparently look like this:


Ewww.

I'm not sure how I feel about the existence of this animal. Or the fact that it apparently refuses to die unless extreme measures are taken. I think I'm just going to hope that the tick and I continue to avoid one another.

*OH NO, that title was a pun. The influence of the Punsultant is both subtle and insidious.