Tick Tales

Sunday afternoon, in the car, on the way home from church, Daniel said something that wouldn't normally "I'm a little worried that I crunched a tick with my teeth."

This statement is admittedly no great cause for concern, but it managed to get Amy excited.  Of course, Amy was already pretty excited, because Daniel and a six-year-old "lady-friend" had gone into the wooded area on the periphery of the church-yard, after the service, and in the car, on the way back, Daniel spotted a "spider" on his stuffed pikachu, which turned out to be a tick.  The Great Northeast is particularly enriched with a condition called "Lyme Disease" which is passed from deer to human being via the deer tick, and Amy had trouble driving knowing that a tick was crawling across the surface of Pikachu.

It turned out that it wasn't Pikachu she was worried about, so much as everyone else, so she ordered me to "watch" the tick while she drove up the Interstate.  Was I watching?  Is it still there?

- Oh yes, I was watching - it was quite interesting.

- This is no time for humor.  We know many people  whose lives have been set back by Lyme disease.  And Brandy died from it!  [Brandy was a Schnauzer we knew.]

Am I still watching it?

- Yes - actually it's a "he" - his name is Willy.

At this point, Daniel became more visibly tuned into the tick-watch.  He smiled quite broadly, as I tried to put Amy at ease with our newest acquisition.  It was almost as if, the more I joked, and Amy grew more dramatic, the more the whole thing pleased Young Daniel.

But then, he had the sudden worry about perhaps having crunched a tick in his mouth.  After he explained the premise, Amy calmed down a bit:  what happened was that, while we were tick-watching, at one point Daniel clenched his teeth, and he felt something go "crunch" between his jaws, so he was speculating that perhaps the crunchy snack was actually a tick.  Amy seemed to think that this scenario might have been a bit of a stretch; she's very calm, after all.

Of course, as soon as we got off at our exit, Amy took on the solemn task of releasing Willy the Tick into a strip-mall parking lot.  She wouldn't let me do it - she had to make sure that she dislodged the tick from Pikachu herself.  She said he would probably die in the hot sun, which moved me to voice some regret on behalf of our departing passenger.

Luckily, no more crunches were reported.


(May 27, 2012)