Tick, Tick, Tick

As we sit here waiting for some future manifestation of Spring in Wisconsin, I am reminded that "tick season" will soon be upon us. There are few things that elicit as violent of a reaction from Diane as even the thought of a tick. I'm sure that even the mention of a tick in my blog has sent shivers down her spine and caused her to verbalize some form of, "Eewwwww!"

I don't believe I have ever met anyone as grossed out by - and afraid of - ticks as my lovely bride.

Now, I'm not saying that I like ticks; they just don't really bother me. I can't begin to count the number of them that I have pulled off of dogs, kids, myself, etc. I like to do things that require me to go into places where ticks thrive. I figure ticks just go with the territory and that I'm going to have to check for ticks if I want to continue fishing, hunting, wandering in the fields and woods, walking the dog or working in the backyard.

Okay, I suppose I'm willing to stop working in the backyard to eliminate that risk, but the other activities are here to stay.

Ticks were a bigger deal when I was a kid. Today, they're just a nuisance. A potential disease-carrying nuisance, perhaps, but just a nuisance nonetheless. I don't freak out if I find one crawling up my leg or embedded somewhere on my body; I just flick it off or pull it out. Done and done.

Not Diane, though. No, Diane freaks. One would think that all of nature had unleashed its fury on my lovely bride if she sees a tick. You can just imagine what happens if she finds one that has embedded.

That happened a few years ago and, the circumstances surrounding it, caused me more stress than a man should have to endure.

It was Easter morning and Diane and I had headed to church very early so I could set up an overflow area at church. I was working to get the sound and projection working when Diane came into the room with a stricken look on her face and said, "Scott, I need you to check something."

My heart nearly stopped, because the look and words were identical to the situation just a few years earlier when she asked me to check the lump she felt in her breast. That one moment was the precursor to six months of torture for her.

That's the only thing I could think of as she led me into the women's restroom (there was no one else in the building, yet). My panic was quickly alleviated, though, when she pulled her skirt up a bit, pointed to a black dot on her thigh and asked, "Is that a tick?"

I was SO relieved!!! It wasn't a lump! It was just a stupid little tick!

I checked and, yes, it was a tick.

Diane's response was immediate and violent.

"Get it out of me!!!!"

I struggled to keep myself from laughing at what was, to me, an extreme overreaction to a simple tick. To her, though, this was a huge deal.

I pulled the tick, flushed it down the toilet and instructed her to wash the area off well and forget about it. Diane was certain that she would soon come down with every tick-borne disease known to man; including those only carried by African species of ticks.

She didn't, of course, but that did nothing to lessen her future responses to the humble little arachnid. So now I am preparing myself for yet another season of Diane's tick-paranoia as the clock ticks ever so slowly toward Tick Season.