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I wish I knew how many thousands of dollars ticks have cost me.
And the worst part is, they weren't even MY ticks. I used to be a rural
real estate broker in southern Missouri, you see.
Sometime I ought to tell you about how many people buy a parcel of land,
then, when they come to camp on it for the first time, find themselves
coated head to toe with ticks. This seemed especially true of those
clients hailing from A Large Western State.
I think that these dear souls in particular must immediately decide that
living in the forest means being constantly consumed by ticks, and that we
poor rubes just don’t know any better.
Well, I have to admit that, when it comes to Not Knowing Any Better on
most subjects, the Ozarks can field a team whose world-class naiveté is a
match for any region on earth. However, if there’s anything, ANYTHING
Ozarkers know, it’s ticks... and the avoidance of same.
The other day, I happened to pick up a gardening magazine and I stumbled
across an article written by a physician regarding protecting oneself from
ticks.
This, in itself was not so remarkable, but as I read on, it became
apparent that I was holding in my hands a manuscript of potential
importance to literary collectors.
Difficult as it may be comprehend, this learned author, who was apparently
getting PAID, managed to perpetuate as truth, two out of three of the Most
Common Silly Myths About Ticks that are generally held by the tick-feeding
public of today.
You can only imagine my elation. I’d been meaning to write something for
our website about ticks for months, but I was looking for an interesting
angle so as to avoid making just another dry recitation of tickfact. What
could possibly be more interesting than debunking myth, and who would be a
better target for ridicule than a doctor?
I am, of course, ever mindful of the fact that doctors often consort with
attorneys, so I don’t intend to mention any names.
Out here in the woods, we don’t know too much about leeches or liposuction
or any of those with-it new medical procedures, but gee-golly, do we know
something about TICKS! ...and I'm just itching to tell you about 'em.
Let’s start out with those Three Common Silly Myths about Ticks:
MYTH No. 1: When visiting the home of the tick, leave as little skin
exposed as possible, wearing long sleeved shirts and long pants tucked
into your socks.
I love this one. A few weeks ago, I had the luck to run into a young woman
on an river outing. Meeting this girl was like old times for me because I
started out in the real estate business catering primarily to the readers
of the original Mother Earth News. You can imagine then, my sense of deja
vu to find standing before me, what appeared to be a perfectly preserved
early-70’s-era Hippie Chick. What was especially neat was that this was
during that really hot spell we had back in July and she was wearing, I
kid you not... long underwear. I didn’t learn this because I asked, I
assure you, but because over the course of the afternoon, she happened to
mention it several times, usually in reference to the fact that she was
sweating like a hog in a sauna.
She said it was to avoid ticks.
Had she ever SEEN a tick, I wondered. I mean, if she, at maybe 5’3" and
120 lbs. Could get into her clothes, then why couldn’t someone who was
less than a sixteenth of an inch long? It’s a good thing that ticks don’t
have any sense of humor, because the laughter out in the woods would be
deafening when they see fully grown homo sapiens wandering around in July
wearing long sleeves and their pants tucked into their socks.
I told her that the best thing to wear for ticks was nothing.
She looked skeptical and suspicious of my motives. I just hate how
untrusting society has become.
MYTH No. 2: Ticks jump out of trees and land on you.
The same girl (I am NOT making her up) was wearing a sort of a sailor hat.
After I professed interest in her TAS (Tick Avoidance System) she
volunteered that the hat was to protect her from the shower of ticks
coming out of the trees
Think about this. The tick climbs up the tree (which has got to be the
approximate equivalent to a human climbing the Washington Monument) then
he sits patiently waiting for a victim. Suddenly, YOU come wandering out
of the underbrush fifty feet away. The tick hastily calculates your mean
velocity; your height in relation to his position in the tree; the speed
and direction of the prevailing wind. A hush falls over the forest. Then,
at precisely the correct moment, with a powerful spring of his spindly
1/32-inch legs, Thunder Tick launches himself, in a perfect triple-gainer,
out of the tree and into your hair.
I’m disappointed that the doctor got this one right, knowing that ticks
make their approach from below rather than above. Phooey.
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