Friday, April 1, 2011

TICK, TOCK, SPLAT
 
First time I ran my fingers through Hannah’s coat and bumped into a tick, I screamed and then scrubbed my hands for five minutes. I used a long-handled pliers to pull it off her. Then I used a hammer to flatten it, and just to be sure––I flushed it down. I’d never seen a tick on my dogs when we lived in town.

Second time I found a tick on my dog, it was a fatter one. I poured rubbing alcohol on it, then removed it with the long-handled pliers, hammered it flat, cut it in half, and yes, flushed it down.
 




By the end of the summer, I was ripping those critters off my dogs with my bare hands. Sometimes the girls had 8 or 10 ticks after a walk in the woods.  I’d pull them off and line them up under the rocker on my rocking chair. Then I’d sit down and rock––poppity pop pop pop pop––just like popcorn. Very satisfying. 

If a dog came by for a scratch while I was writing at my desk, and I found a tick, I’d tear it off and just staple it to a scrap of paper. That way I could deal with it later. Why waste time getting up? I was busy. (In a pinch, a little Scotch tape sandwich works, too.)

Ticks are nasty when they’re tiny and flat. They’re just plain disgusting when they fill themselves with blood, so engorged that their legs are subsumed by their fat bodies. They swallow their own feet and then just fall off the dog. They get to be the size of a small cranberry!

 I know there are people who tenderly carry insects outside and find them suitable housing. That is not me, not where ticks are concerned. Very few things that bore into my dogs will get mercy from this court.