For a few days, I went up to Orange County, VA with a friend. He gave me a tour of his town (which didn't take very long) and one of the sites we drove by was a haunted house. A family had died there in the 50s and no one had lived there since. The place was overgrown and the house was not visible from the road. My friend merely pointed it out and drove on. But there's something about a haunted house that entices me. I didn't forget about it and the last day I was there, I begged him to take me to see it.
We began to pick our way through the brush that had grown over the drive. We were still in sight of the road and not yet in sight of the house when he began to perform a crazy dance on the path in front of me.
"Ticks!" he shouted, stomping them off his feet and swatting at them.
I took a deep breath and tried not to get irritable. Seriously? I thought. They're just bugs. I'm the city girl. I should be freaking out about bugs, not the country boy who grew up here. But he refused to go on and promised we would another time, when we both had pants and shoes on instead of shorts and flip-flops. We got back to the road (although, I admit, I did snap once or twice for him to get going when he stopped in front of me to wipe at more ticks. (but seriously, if you stop in the brush, more will get on you as you remove the others. Wait till you get to the road!))
When we were on the road, and he had become content that he was clear of ticks, I asked him, "Do I have any on me?"
He said, and I quote, "you're good."
He lied to me.
After this, I went back to his house, packed my car and drove home, taking about 4 hours total. I arrived home at about 11pm and, tired from the drive, promptly changed into some pajamas. This is when I found the first four ticks on my legs. I came to realize why my friend flipped out about the ticks. These were not just bugs. They were bugs that wanted to bury their heads in my flesh and suck my blood until they became gargantuous and then depart, obese on my life blood! I scrambled to remove the bloody little parasites and was relieved when I threw the four in the toilet to meet a watery grave. Relieved until I began to search the rest of my body. 5 more ticks joined their friends in the Whirlpool of Doom and finally I was satisfied that I was tick free. (I did, however, have that creepy crawly feeling for the rest of the night.)
The next morning, I was pleased to recall that that far from lovely incident was in the past and today was a new day. I got in my car. Evidently, during the three hour drive, a number of ticks had crawled off me in my car in a (successful) attempt to evade the Whirlpool of Doom and a (successful) attempt to crawl on my at a later point and dine on my blood.
13 ticks total.
Two lessons from this:
1. It is completely reasonable to freak out when ticks are discovered on self
2. After adrenaline rush from freaking out about ticks on self, friends become blind and fail to see the dozen+ ticks scurrying across your legs.
