A Spoon-tastic tick?

The word 'Tick' has come full circle.

During childhood, it was with great fear that I'd traverse the woods with friends, ensuring my head was covered in the event a tick decided to drop in for a free hair consult. One particular childhood gal pal told me of her older brother's nocturnal experience of finding a tick crawling up his leg. Eeeewww!

During recess one afternoon, this same friend turned to me and, hands in her hair, said, "Look at my head, I think I have a tick." Craning my neck, I spotted the burgundy-colored vampire. AAAAAAA!!! We raced into our classroom, freaking out to Ms. Ferguson. This maven coolly struck a match, sizzled the sucker, took out her tweezers (no self-respecting fourth grade teacher would neglect her arch) and plucked it out. Tossing it in the trash can, she told us to beat it. She was fab.

Then there's the memory of my parents pulling a tick from my sister's skull. They got the tick, but not the stinger, sucker thingy that, if left in causes lime disease. (At least that's what we were told.) So they proceeded to remove a small portion of flesh from her scalp. (Hmmm, could delayed trauma be the cause of her thinning hair?) These are just a few of my tick-related memories that still leave me with just a smidge of the heebie jeebies. You may think I'm joking, but I was DEATHLY afraid of one day finding a tick on my head. If only it had been my head . . . but I digress.

Fast forward to my final year of higher learning. My posse of flannel-shirted journalists got wind of a new Saturday morning cartoon, "The Tick," and thus began the weekly ritual of cartoon watching. No matter how hung over, no matter how sleep-deprived, "The Tick" was serious business. We'd buy donuts, we'd make pancakes, we'd pour juice. It was keen.

Magically those old tick demons ebbed away. When I'd hear the word 'tick,' I no longer fingered my scalp. I'd yell, "Spoon!" And for the last decade, "Spoon!" has remained my instinctual tick response. Until we moved to the farmette 3 years ago.

With country living came the evening "tick check." No longer did I yell, "Spoon!" and giggle over the mental picture of a the big-chinned, blue-spandexed cartoon hero. No, the old fear of lime disease returned. Moira and Maclane, with all their tree climbing, dirt digging, and bush crawling, would find themselves host to many. My husband would calmly de-escalate the freakouts by bravely removing the parasites. And fortunately the kids have not copped my fear, the second they feel or spot one, they simply let us know, no big whup.

Despite my history of fear, I, personally, don't recall a single tick on my person until last summer. Stepping out of the shower, Moira says to me, "Mommy! There's a tick on your butt! Ha ha ha ha ha!" Oh yes, my first and, so far, only personal tick encounter was not of the hairline variety. Oh no, it was of the stuck-to-my-meaty-right-cheek kind.

But this morning beat that. I came downstairs to meet my husband who was asking for a double high-5. "Bet you've never heard this one," he brags. "Daddy, there's a tick on my penis!"

"Spoon!"