I have been stabbed
I have some buckshot in me, or at least I used to, I have a couple nasty scars here and there, and they were all annoying but I lived. Partner is the same, he’s covered in little scars and he always won the “Number of stitches this week” award when we were growing up. Being more agile, he was also more prone to more dangerous stunts.
To this day, he has a thing about snakes. Where he grew up there were a lot of posonous types, and though I’m not a fan of being poisoned, I have handled a lot of snakes in my life, poisonous and otherwise, and I give them wide berth but don’t have the same innate fear.
Ticks, on the other hand… GOD I despise a tick, and i found one moments ago, causing me to engae involuntarily in the ritual tick dance of my people. It hadn’t bitten yet, and now it never will, but damn, does that freak me out. and now I will freak out a bit each time a breeze moves a hair on my arm or leg for the next WEEk until I get the tick thing out of my head. Ugh.
19 comments Og | Uncategorized
About seven years back my dog Ozzie and I attended a Mt.Man Rendezvous in Eastern WA. We had a wonderful time. When we got home, I was taking a shower whed Da Missus came in the bathroom shrieking that Oz was covered with ticks. I told her that as we were only a few hours out of tick country she could take a pair of her eyebrown tweezers, kind a scissors arrangement with flat ends and pluck the ticks off the pooch. If she wanted the ticks to die screaming, she could pop ’em into a small bottle of denatured alcohol. She got about seventy five off the dog and twenty off of me. I don’t panic at ticks or snakes, but Yellowjackets are an entirely different kettle of nasty stinging fish. Everyone has something.
It’s interesting that we hewmons are naturally afraid only of falling and loud noises. You can quite rightfully vilify mommy for almost everything else you’re scared of.
If more of our mothers were like Viking women, we’d be a lot more manly. I’ve actually met few naturally cowardly Scandinavian Women.
My Beloved is a case in point. Several morons have lived to regret “getting between her and her cubs”. Sarah Palin, God bless her, could take lessons.
Gerry Nygaard
P.S.
Da Missus was made in the USA of 100% Icelandic parts. Tough as nails, she is, when push comes to shove. I learned that trying to “push her around” was tantamount to suicide a year before I married her. I definitely married up.
Gerry Nygaard
So, Og, are you saying that the next time I see you in person I shouldn’t come up behind you and walk my fingertips across the back of your neck?
John: not unless you want to dig yourself out of a pile of shit.
Of late I have grown fond of the gritters… must be because I befriended the local Tick Lady.
Her line of work is researching pesticide resistance in Acarina, specialising in Rhipicephalus microplus. (Blue Ticks or cattle ticks)
But after being down in the lab where they do the testing I have an itching sensation for a few hours! ;-)
Gerry N. above just described my Mom, except she was Norwegian, not Icelandic. Tough as an old boot and so stubborn that mules would say among themselves “Damn, that woman is stubborn!”.
Guy tried to get in the back door one time, my Mom was standing behind it with my Dad’s four-pound drilling hammer. Thor-ette indeed!
And it appears I can comment again!
Not to afraid of ticks, but I do respect the shudder from breeze after one has been found.
Bugs don’t bother me much, and snakes I can handle, just don’t go looking for them any more.
Most critters I am afraid of are bigger than me and have teeth.
I definitely would not try to raise a fight or flight response out of Og though as I am sure that would not end well.
I get at least a 100 ticks a year on me, not counting the multi-hundred attacks of the nymphs on my feet and ankles. I guess you get used to it. Not sure if it’s a southern thing or I’m living in tick hell.
John. Those flea and tick collars they make for dogs work on people too. When I was in the Army many years ago, I used to string a couple together and wear them as a belt. It at least kept the critters out of the prime real estate.
I wear them around my ankles usually.
I like snakes and ticks are “meh” to me. I do the bee dance.
Suz: I actively seek out bees every year so I can get some relief from my knee pain. A bee sting is but a small thing compared ot the relief I get.
Bees and wasps here. All the other critters may either be ignored, or in the case of spiders within sight of my sweetieheart, quickly removed from this plain of existence.
Greatly dislike ticks, but the only one that really freaked me was the one I found when I unzipped to pee one day. THAT got my attention.
EEEW! You betcha, that would wake you right up!
You haven’t lived until you’ve found a tarantula in your bed.
Of course, I’m doing the spider samba right there, squeeling, and my female housemate come in and gently scoops it up in a dustbin, cooing at it like a baby and gently puts it outside.
I slept on the sofa for a week.
Was so freaked out by ticks in MN when I first got there I never got a full night’s sleep. Every time I had an itch or a tickle, I’d jump out of bed, strip off, and inspect my body. Of course, the tick I found was right in my GROIN.
Finally learned to take them and put them on the burner on the kitchen range and light the burner. Sometimes they exploded like popcorn. (insert evil grin here)
Scorpions have always been my bugaboo, though I’ve never been stung by one. Can’t stand spiders either, nor wasps (that one was only indirectly Mom’s fault, her advice that “It’ll only sting you if you’re pestering it” did not take the red wasp’s territoriality into account), ever since one got me between the shoulder blades.
Snakes creep me right out, nearly as bad as a politician or any other professional victim.
I went to sleep on a ant trail (4 feet wide trail) one time in panama. I woke up covered in them, but fortunately they were all still groggy from lack of coffee so they hadn’t started the “cutting me up into small pieces” stage yet.