Tick Talk

A beautiful spring morning. Arms outstretched, balanced on a broken limb, I navigated the edge of the pond and came away with only one wet runner.

Oh, how I was loving this adventure, wondering why my biologist husband had never brought me to this beautiful place. Surely he knew about it. Surely he knew how I love exploring off-trail where few seem to venture.

But now it was time to go. I’d been gone too long already and a walk through the tall grass would be better than the chance of another wet shoe.

As I mounted my bicycle I saw them. Hundreds of them. An army of ticks marching from the hems of my sweatpants toward the soft folds of flesh beneath my tee.

In case you are unfamiliar with ticks, ticks don’t brush off. A tick can dig into almost anything. With three hook-like fingers on each hook-like hand, it is unstoppable in its quest for blood.

Modesty battled a primal urge to be rid of my clothes. Though the road was deserted, modesty won. I pedaled as fast as my mid-forty legs could pedal, toward home, three miles away.

At the one-mile mark, I glanced down. Advancing up my shins now, those in the lead were nearing my knees.

I was trapped in a nightmare.

When I reached home, I streaked to the back porch where I could strip. I threw my clothes as far as I could throw them and screamed. My shrieks drew my young son to the door. From around the corner, I implored him, “Close your eyes, unlock the door, and run.” All I could think of was a shower.

A tick will work its way into the skin to pull it apart. Their hypostome is like a chainsaw, their mouth a straw. Weapon inserted, they spit blood-thinning saliva into your flesh. Then, as the blood pools, the tick leisurely sips until it’s completely engorged. Only then does it back its way out.

If the tick is male, it will die after feasting, but not until it mates. If the tick is female, it lives on to deposit 3,000 to 6,000 eggs in a cozy nest on the ground. It was just such a nest I had disturbed.

Despite my love of all things nature, ticks are a scourge worthy of one thing: eradication.

Not all agree.

If ticks went extinct, the ecological impact could lead to disruption in various ecosystems and possibly increased disease transmission. — Field Guide

Really? Have you factored in Lyme disease and emotional trauma? What would the net effect be? I want to see the math.

Additionally, there would be a potential imbalance in the food chain affecting certain species that rely on ticks as a food source. — Field Guide

Yes, ticks are a food source for chickens, turkeys, and other fowl I used to enjoy eating. Yet take ticks away and I’m quite sure they would find something else to eat, like grasshoppers, grubs, spiders, or your table scraps.

And get this:

A strong and important link in the food chain, ticks take nourishment from larger host animals high in the food chain and transfer that down to lesser organisms. — Ticks and Poison Ivy

Seriously?? By sucking their blood? There’s got to be better ways to nourish the animal kingdom! These people are scrambling.

Scientists say the population of ticks can tell them how the ecosystem is doing “in general.” I’ll tell you how the ecosystem would be doing “in general” if the population of ticks was a big fat zero. Much better!

Ticks help to keep animal populations in check. — What Purpose Do Ticks Serve?

How? By giving them Rocky Mountain fever, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, encephalitis, tularemia, or ehrlichiosis.

Here’s the thing: a tick can’t kill a mosquito, and I can think of no other animal that deserves to live less than a tick. I would rather have a slew of pocket gophers digging up my lawn than a single tick hiding in the grass.

Granted, quite a few are employed, thanks to ticks:

The folks at Frontline, Black Flag, your local pest exterminators, and researchers. Lots of researchers.

…a randomized, replicated, fully crossed, placebo-controlled, masked experiment was conducted to test whether two environmentally safe interventions, the Tick Control System (TCS) and Met52 fungal spray, used separately or together, affected risk for and incidence of TBDs in humans and pets. — Emerging Infectious Diseases

Like I said, researchers. And not only researchers, but people who write long sentences about their research.

So finally, to the purpose of this disgusting article:

How to get rid of a tick.

If you are attempting to remove a tick while it is still feasting, despite your instincts to jerk, you must be gentle. Any squeezing or twisting can force your now corrupted blood back into your flesh, perhaps carrying nasty diseases that, sadly, don’t kill the tick.

With a fine set of tweezers, grasp the tick as close to your skin as possible, and with firm, gentle pressure, pull it out. Only when the tick is removed can you do what you are dying to do: grab the nearest sledgehammer and beat it to a bloody pulp.

One big but: if you find a tick before it’s found a body, a hammer won’t do. An empty tick doesn’t squish. Flatter than a pancake, skin tougher than leather, it sits, unconcerned, as you pound, and pound, and pound.

You can’t starve a tick. When I retrieved my trainers months after the horror show there were still ticks — living ticks — clinging to their laces.

You can’t drown a tick. One helpful piece of advice I found suggested putting your clothes in hot water for about 5–10 minutes to eliminate unseen ticks from your clothing. Sorry, unless you throw your clothes into a bowl of slippery porcelain — like your toilet — a tick can climb out faster than it will drown.

Flushing it may remove it from your vicinity, but that’s a selfish solution. You may see it swirl, down, down, down, but it will swim on to claw its way out of the sewer and find some host at the other end of the pipe.

The CDC recommends washing your clothes, putting them in your dryer, and tumbling them on high for 10 minutes.

So, I’m going to bring my clothes into the house, throw them into my washer and dryer, then feel safe doing next week’s laundry? Sorry. That’s just plain stupid.

A tick doesn’t freeze. Because it can adjust its gestation period from two months to two years, it can lie peacefully in its nest, hunkered down with its babies. In my case, Mama tick lived through a brutal North Dakota winter to give birth to all her little wicked ones who crawled up my legs the next spring.

Now for the good news:

You can suffocate a tick. Putting it in a plastic bag or a jar will eventually kill it. Yet, though I might get some satisfaction watching the little sucker gasping for breath, I’m not confident even a Ziplock can zip tight enough.

Disease Control’s favorite method is to fully submerge the tick in alcohol and preserve it for later testing. If the person or pet bitten begins to experience illness, the pickled tick can be tested for diagnosis and treatment. Logical. However, when I see a tick anywhere near me or my loved ones, honestly, I’m not thinking logically.

There is one foolproof way to kill a tick: burn it.

My dear, dear friends at Mosquito Squad say:

While burning a tick is possible, just be sure to do this in a safe environment like an outdoor fire pit or burn barrel.

But I have no access to an outdoor fire pit, and burn barrels aren’t allowed where I live. So, at this point, I, champion of all creatures great and small, become heartless and cruel.

I take that fine tweezers and hold the tick to the red-hot burner of my stove. I’ve called my children to watch as part of their survival training.

Not only will burning a tick kill it quickly, you’ll have the pleasure of hearing it sizzle.