Never fall asleep during tick season with enemy in hand

Most people have had close encounters of the bloodsucking kind with ticks. The creepy, crawly, gnarly nasties hop on and it’s our job to knock them off before they can begin any extractive mining operations.

There is ample advice for avoiding ticks. One thing that goes unsaid but that every human instinctively knows is that the only good tick is an absolutely-and-for-certain-dead tick. Otherwise, the little booger is liable to regenerate and go right back to work.

Speaking of work, I have a brother-in-law who labors very hard. John reminds me of my late grandfather, Wheeler Walters, who also worked hard. Like Wheeler, my brother-in-law is prone to falling asleep once he’s seated and comfortable after a busy day.

There have been many evening gatherings when, in the midst of noisy conversation, kids playing loudly or a television blaring, John was observed intermittently nodding off. There’s nothing unusual about that. I’ve done it myself.

I’ve never seen John fall asleep in mid-sentence like Wheeler sometimes did, but that’s another story.

Speaking of stories, everybody has one or two about ticks. The one that I’ve shared most is about the time a school administrator nearly set my head on fire while removing an embedded bug from my scalp.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has an extensive webpage dedicated to preventing tick bites. There’s a link to another page with directions for safely removing ticks that are attached. You’re supposed to use tweezers.

I grew up using the hot-match method of tick removal. You light a match, blow it out and touch the hot match head to the tick, which will then release on its own.

Tickborne illnesses are no joke. We always wanted the tick to release on its own in order to lower the risk of its head remaining inside, which we were certain could result in three or more wretched and debilitating maladies.

During class one day at my junior high school, I discovered a tick attached to the back of my head. A lady in the principal’s office was prepared to employ the hot-match method.

She began, however, by soaking the tick and surrounding area with alcohol. I still can’t believe I had to stop her from then lighting a match near to my highly flammable hair.

Tick season is upon us, and the topic of tick screenings was raised during a recent gathering at my house. “Tell your tick story,” my sister Sue Ellen said to her husband. They both started laughing, so we knew it was a good one.

John told of finding a tick attached to his scalp after settling in for a little TV one recent evening. He called to his wife for assistance, and she removed the bug using the proper CDC-recommended technique. She is a registered nurse after all.

As they inspected the worrisome specimen with bespectacled intensity, John, who has no medical training, offered that he and this particular parasite had met before.

“I gotta be honest,” he said. “I found that sucker (crawling) on my head last night and sat here holding it between my fingers. I fell asleep, and he got away.”

This time, they flushed it down the toilet. But I gotta be honest. That’s one tick that’s never going to die.