When I was a kid, we moved from the city into the county. Back in the day, this meant going from public transportation, walking to school to yellow buses and bicycles.
It also meant...ticks.
I went wandering through the woods behind our house and the next day in school, something fell from my head onto the desk in front of me. It was a bug. I stood up and screamed. Of course, I'd only been in the new school for a month and I was the weird fat kid with glasses who read and was not allowed out at recess. Standing up in the middle of Mrs. Phillips' third grade class and screaming did not further endear me to my fellow students.
Mrs. Phillips came over and looked at what was on my desk. "It's just a tick," she said. "Mercy me, you'll get ticks if you go walking in the woods."
Only after that, I didn't get ticks. I didn't get chiggers, poison oak, poison ivy, nothing. I was a child of nature.
Last week, I hacked away at the weird cedar tree / bush / whatever in my back yard. If bugs hadn't rained down on me, little sawdust like particles did. When I went to the movies on Sunday, I was convinced there were little bugs in the theater. I could see the moths flitting around in the light, but I felt something creeping up my right leg, freaked out, shook my pants leg furiously and moved to another seat.
Yesterday, I bumped into the tree while clearing away the grass from my back fence. And when I was at Panera, I scratched my head and something fell on the table. A bug. Before I fled to the bathroom, I had one glimpse of it and it looked like a tick, about 1/8" long. I was instantly up, ran to the bathroom, and furiously ruffled my hair. It didn't calm me down.
I packed up my stuff and zoomed home, where I stripped the minute I walked in the door, ran to the bathroom, and washed and washed and washed my hair and my body. The clothes were picked up with a tong and put into the washer.
Last night when I was trying to sleep, I felt tiny little bugs crawling all over me again. I know that's not right. I know something's wrong. One tiny spot on my scalp is burningly sore, but at the moment, I don't have health benefits (long story and I hate Discovery Benefits) so I can't take my hypochondriacal self to the doctor.
Right now? Same thing. Creepy-crawly skin.
I've stopped taking the Sam-E, just in case it's a reaction to that. But I really hate ticks. I really, really, really hate ticks.
3 comments:
Hey, guess what I found out just yesterday. If you stop anti-depressants suddenly it can really mess you up. Like, bowel issues and heart issues. You can still stop it, but don;'t you want to get a wean-off schedule (I can't spell the "tritraition" word)? Maybe this is a side effect that will pass, too.
Ticks are single-minded, bloodsucking, disease-carrying, robotic, spider-like, sneaky, scourges of the earth. They don't even have the excuse that they are a major food source for any other more pleasant beast. I hate them. In Washington we had them walking up the walls, waiting to drop on anyone who entered the room.
You are so normal, once I took my son to the doctor for what turned out to be (impetago)sp, right away I started rubbing my nose and she said she was the way too. Everyone gets itchy when this stuff happens.
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