"What the...?"

Sunday night, after the holiday farewell I drove home in a parade of cars on the highway.  We inched our way along like a giant caterpillar - moving as one, but everyone was eager to scurry off on their own way undisturbed.
 
I got lost in my thoughts with the music on in the background and the sea of cars around me.  Without paying attention, my fingers ran along my scalp on the back of my head and I felt some sort of odd bump.  I scratched at it - it felt like a scab but I hadn’t cut myself.  I could feel a little something on my finger so I put the light on and it was a black speck.  I felt around some more and used my fingernail to pry up the scab feeling thing and held it to the light.

HOLY SHIT!  Help!  Help!

You know when an adult playfully holds a child up over a pool like they’re going to throw them in?  Their arms and legs flailing in the air while they’re giggling and screaming “Don’t throw me in!”

This is what the tick looked like flailing its’ little legs between my pointer finger and thumb under the light as I drove down the highway.  


I very calmly freaked-the-hell-out because I may go to war with fleas and win, but I hate ticks.  They’re almost worse than snakes, but not quite, and I can‘t believe I‘ve written about all that stuff here.  My freak-out consisted of me throwing the tick out the window, but doing it so fast I couldn’t be sure it actually went out - and I couldn't pull over for a couple of miles.

Great.
 
And then the images started - it may be on my arm or crawling up my leg or on the inside of the car door waiting to jump into my head again.

I pulled over when it was safe and thoroughly inspected every inch of my car's interior.  I patted myself up and down risking indecency laws, but THIS WAS SERIOUS MAN!  I was in trouble and I wasn’t concerned about the law or things like - getting thrown in jail.   I shook my hair round-and-round and wildly ran my fingers through my hair, and my scalp, and if anyone was watching they would’ve thought I was doing some kind of private dance in the parking lot, alone - and maybe even looking for a little attention.

I got back on the road and promptly called Momma.

“Hi Mom.”  I said in a overly controlled voice.  The kind of voice that lets you know something’s coming.

“Hi, are you home yet?”  Momma responded.

“No.  I have another 10-15 minutes.  Guess what I just found?  A TICK IN MY HEAD, MOM!  I JUST PULLED A TICK OUT OF MY HEAD AND IT WAS FROM YOUR HOUSE!”

Totally un-phased and with a slight chuckle, I hear her tell someone “Micki Michelle just pulled a tick out her head.”

And then she comes back on the phone with me, “Ok baby, you drive safe.”

Thanks Mom.  I could’ve died you know, transporting ticks across state lines.  That thing might’ve laid eggs in the hole it bore into my head and the babies could get into my brain that way.  Did you know that chuckling-un-phased-by-my-drama Momma?  The same woman that I earlier told, “I’d never heard such a thing in my 48 years.” and I’m only 42.  Your mother of all people would pick up on that right?   


I guess when your mother sleeps with a gun in her bed, a .44 Magnum to be precise, a simple blood-sucking tick is nothing.