Chaos & Clarity

I’ve come a long way since my first experience with a tick.  There’s no more screaming or thrashing or hyperventilating.  But as I discovered today, I still can’t claim dominion over my faculties when the little buggers are stuck on ME.

I thought I was handling myself well when, while showering at the gym, I found three ticks inhabiting a sensitive region of my body.  Devoid of tweezers, and unwilling to wait the several hours until I returned home, I threw myself together and headed for the drugstore.  Friend happened to call in the process and commented that I was handling myself surprisingly well.  She couldn’t see how fast I was driving.  Anxiety was building.  But I patted myself on the back anyway.  Not bad for a city girl, I thought.

Perhaps the cosmetics cashier wondered what kind of diva runs through CVS on an emergency tweezer purchase, ripping through the packaging on her way to the car.  But she could not have been as perplexed as the woman who watched me peel out of one parking spot near the entrance of the store to a different spot at the far end.  You know, the spots where the employees park and LEAVE THEIR CARS for the day.

Frantic to remove the invading ticks, I dropped my pants and began plucking.  When all three were tossed out the window, I performed another thorough scan of the nether regions of my body to make sure I hadn’t missed any.  Breathing a sigh of relief, I glanced up at the car beside me and saw a man, cup of coffee in hand, jaw dropped and eyes wide.  I froze briefly, matching the surprise on his face.

Contemplating my next move while putting myself back together, I smiled sheepishly and considered introducing myself.  He had just seen me half-naked after all.  Instead, I opted for a casual shoulder shrug and a wave.  Whatever.  I had ticks!

Off I drove to meet husband so we could exchange cars.  Still not convinced that I was tick-free, I asked husband to check my backside.  He refused, siting our location as too public.  Newly desensitized to potential onlookers, I insisted and threw myself prostrate into the back seat of the car with my shirt up.

Alarmed at my lack of decorum, husband tried appeasing me with a perfunctory exam lasting all of one second.  “You’re fine.” He declared.  “I’ll do a check when we get home.”

Are you kidding?  A tick could be infusing me with Lyme Disease by then!  Despite my begging, husband stood firm, which left me thinking….Had this happened in young adulthood, husband would not have hesitated when his wife threw herself in the backseat asking for a bodily examination.  Just sayin’.

A few hours after parting ways, husband phoned in a bit of a huff to report that he had picked up a friend of mine – a hitchhiker.  Excuse me?  A little fellow, he explained.  Tiny, black, crawling up my arm.  Husband detailed a rather frantic encounter with a tick as he tried to remove it while driving on the highway.

Oh, I see.  So you, country boy, had to remove a tick immediately, without even stopping the car, for fear of its consequences.  But when your wife has ticks embedded in her, you tell her to calm down.

Husband reverted to an accusatory defense strategy – something about sabotage and planting ticks in the car.  I admitted to dropping one of the ticks on its way out the window, but let’s not lose sight of the real issue.  Country Boy is a fraud.  Chalk one up for City Girl.