....I'd Like to Check You for Ticks by Brad Paisley

Yes, that's right - the Brad Paisley song that any proud city slicker would write off as backwoods country and a really funny pick-up line......Not!!!! Any country boy worth his salt knows that he is paying the lady the highest compliment, strangely enough, because after walking through wildflowers, you are going to want to check for ticks. Ladies, let me tell you, you don't want the guys who won't check you for ticks. Yes, there is story. So, I fish right?? City slicker gone country shooting shotguns and such, but I'm also allergic to dirt, dust, pollen, trees, countless bugs, mold, cigarette smoke, cats, dogs, and only the Good Lord knows what else, because I don't remember. Apparently a couple ticks got on my shoes and I didn't realize it until they got hungry, left my shoes, and headed north, and decided to eat me. I'm not real into bugs, probably directly related to being allergic to them, so when I scratched my neck at my hairline and pulled something foreign out of my hair while driving in the rain at 70 mph, imagine my surprise when a brown tick the size of a green pea was attempting to bite my finger. Yep, still city slicker enough to scream loud enough to wake folks in the next county. I couldn't let go of him because then he would find me in my van again as I had dropped him the day before, so what's a city slicker to do?? I found a tissue, drove with no hands while swapping the tick to the tissue praying that I didn't wreck while creeped out over this critter between my fingers. I managed to get it into the tissue, but couldn't squash it. I don't know how much strength that takes, but I sure don't have it. I had to hold the tissue and tick between two fingers and one of them is the finger with the latest purple bruise from my hammering sterling silver for a new S clasp and my bruised finger was weakening from squeezing the tick and I knew I only had seconds left before the tick was wondering around in my van looking for me, so I did the only thing I could think of before I dropped it and that was throw it out the window. I'm one of those folks who won't throw a banana peel out the window, which is why my vehicle is usually packing a plastic bag for trash, but today I had to let that kleenex fly out the window.........I feel guilty about that, but it was either me or the tick, so hopefully there is a gray area where in extreme circumstances like having a tick between your fingers that throwing a kleenex out the window is understandable. I've had Lyme Disease or specifically, Southern Tick Disease and the last thing I want is to get it again.

So, you ask what does the photo have to do with the story??? I pulled a tick off yesterday and dropped it and I am hopeful that it found me today and that it isn't a whole flock of them things lying in wait for me. However, from a person who had to diagnose herself and determine the proper antibiotics, dosage, and duration and take those 150+ pages in to the doctor's office so that the same folks who had told me they didn't know what it was could prescribe me the antibiotics I needed as that was the only part of the scenario I couldn't do myself and I paid a couple hundred for them to write me a Rx. after I diagnosed myself; well, that person being me I chose to soak in cat shampoo. I am hopeful I am not radioactive nor glowing green, but we shall see as the label said to wear gloves when applying the medicated shampoo to your cats, but I rather saw wearing gloves as a moot point considering the rest of me was soaking in medicated cat shampoo. We will now have to wash all 6 of the indoor cats in shampoo as my shoes or clothes may have given them ticks - thought that was supposed to be the other way around.........The good news is that I won't get bit by fleas or ticks for 30 days according to the label.

No, I am never bored.