Slick tick

My husband thought this was a good story, but I just think it's his attempt for the world to find out how deranged I actually am.

Sunday morning, I went to the grocery store at 6 AM, which is a usual thing for me to do (I go alone, there's no one in walmart, etc. I am sure it will be the topic of a later post). When I got home, my husband was getting ready for his Sunday morning golf shootout. Ivy came in and started talking as loud as she could, and I was walking around the bed in my tennis shoes trying to pull the covers up.

I stepped on something, and it popped under my foot. I was fairly certain that I had just broken a toy or something, so I lifted my foot to examine it, prepared to make a hasty departure for the trash can, hiding the toy from Ivy. Instead, I saw a stream of something dark across the floor.

Suddenly I became concerned that I had stepped on an ink pen or marker and had just shot ink across my hardwood floor. I knelt down and stuck my fingers in the dark streaks, looking at it carefully. It didn't feel like ink....I brought the finger up for a sniff....it didn't smell like ink either. I thought abstractedly that it kind of looked like blood, but it was too gloppy.

As I lifted my shoe, I noticed this greyish thing flat on the floor. It kind of looked like a deflated pea pod. I picked it up and realized that whatever it was, the ink had come out of it....what would a pod of ink be doing on the floor next to the bed? I wondered.

I turned the pod over and pver in my fingers.....and then I saw LEGS. I immediately knew what it was- a really full TICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I sat down hard on the floor, dropping the offensive deflated bug-shell-thingy. Normally, I have a stomach of steel. I can clean up anything: puke, pee, poop, hairballs, etc. And I have definitely overcome my aversion to insects. After growing up in the bug-free city, and then moving to the spider house of death, I thought I was a goner, but now I can kill anything!

So, why I almost passed out and puked at the same time with three fingers covered in tick-guts I have no idea.

Ivy rushed to get Daddy, and my husband came in to find me slouched on the floor, pale, gagging with three bloody fingers held out in front of me. He immediately thought the worst and went looking for the finger I was obviously missing. (He actually told me that he thought the tick body might have been my finger- yuck!)

He helped me up, and I immediately sprang into action mode. I ran to the bathroom, scalded my fingers and washed them three times. Then, I sprinted to the kitchen where I grabbed the hardwood floor cleaner, and gave the floor several good sprays before I felt good enought to mop it up, along with the squishy tick. Rob found an intact full tick on the other side of the bed, but I refused to deal with that one.

Later, I found a tick on my hip. I almost passed out again.

Abby the dog is staying outside all day every day till I can get something to take those nasty things off of her...ew.