(Reader discretion advised. This is a story about my undercarriage.)
My top priority in reviving my blog is obviously to bolster my longstanding argument that nature is terrible by relating a chilling tale that has become known as “The Intimate Tick,” or “that weird, overly personal story Carie keeps telling her friends because her life is so boring.”
Several years ago, I was at Bethabara, a historic settlement in Winston-Salem, with my dad’s side of the family. Bethabara looks rural, but it’s actually right in the middle of Winston-Salem suburbia. It was a Sunday. My minister grandfather led us in a devotional time, and then we enjoyed a potluck on the picnic tables. The kids played games and the adults talked. It was a very nice afternoon.
However, when I was getting ready for work on Tuesday morning of that week, I noticed a weird spot in—yes—my bathing suit area. I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first, but by the end of the day, the horrible truth had sunk in.
It was a tick.
I did what any independent, self-reliant, professional woman would do in this situation. I picked up my phone and dialed.
“Mom? I have a question . . . ”
Mom and I agreed that the tick had to be evicted, but unfortunately, I could not do the honors myself. I went to the urgent care, where I had the following totally relaxed conversation with the lady at the front desk:
“Hi, um, I need to see a doctor.”
“What seems to be the problem?”
“Um, I think I have a tick.”
“Okay. Where is the tick located?”
“It’s, um, in my personal region? Um, preferably a female doctor would be good.”
“Okay, please have a seat.”
A few minutes later, a nurse and a PA, both thankfully female, removed the tick with the aid of a local numbing agent and a scalpel. I was very brave (read: embarrassed and apologetic, although the nurse and PA assured me they had seen worse). While they were sharpening the scalpel or whatever, I realized I felt a little vindicated to learn that it really was a tick, whose extraction required minor surgery. Historically, I have been something of a hypochondriac. You know that Jeff Foxworthy joke where his wife is worried that she has testicular cancer? That’s me.
So I was very brave and I didn’t get Lyme disease or anything so all’s well that ends well. But here’s the point: A tick crawled into my drawers while I was sitting at a suburban picnic table in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. What are the odds? I’ve got friends who go on camping trips for fun and other similar nonsense, and this has never happened to any of them. (Or maybe they have the self-respect to keep this sort of anecdote zipped up.) (Nailed it.) Does the insect community know what I’ve been saying about them in print? Did they send this little squatter as an act of revenge? I can’t say. What I can say is that I’ve been sitting on this story (rim shot) for several years, and I’m finally breaking my silence. In fact, I’m planning a trip back to Bethabara in the spring. My entourage will be made up of medical personnel.
