"I'd like to check you for ticks"

A little more than a year ago I was at a Brad Paisley concert the night before I left for my best friend's wedding in Mexico. On the way, I dropped my entire collection of underwear off at the laundromat to be washed so that I could pick it up afterwards and make my 6:00 am flight the next morning. Once the concert started, though, I started to re-think the idea of leaving early just to get my underwear. I distinctly remember turning to my friend and saying "he hasn't even played Ticks yet!" And, with that, I decided to stay at the concert and went to Mexico with no underwear. I mean, who needs underwear in Mexico anyways, right?

This morning I awoke to the sleepy blue eyes of a very handsome British man looking back at me. Despite my exhaustion and desire to remain in bed with said boy, I got up with a smile on my face, re-playing my wonderful weekend in my mind. With sleep in my eyes, I kiss him goodbye and wish him a wonderful day - I head home and he heads to Home Depot. I barely make it up the stairs, stumble to the bathroom and turn on the shower. Not very efficiently due to lack of sleep, I grab a clean towel, put toothpaste on my toothbrush, apply facewash to my face, get undressed and climb in the shower. I follow the same routine I do everyday. Wash face. Rinse hair. Brush teeth. Apply shampoo. Lather up. Rinse. Apply conditioner. Rinse. All the while singing and dancing to the uplifting lyrics of Sugarland's All I want to do. It's a wonderful and celebrated experience every morning. Except this morning something happened that didn't fit into this routine.

As i was rinsing off - just before turning off the water - I realized I had an itch on my thigh. I scratch it. It continue to itch. So I look down. A bug. Gross but no big deal. I flick it off my skin. It doesn't move. I flick again. It still doesn't move. "Oh. My. God. This is not a bug. It's a tick." I immediately go into panic mode. I start pacing. Freaking out. Panting. Crying. Hyper-ventilating. All of a sudden I become acutely aware of the creature that has attached itself to my body and is sucking my blood. My blood. Sucking. I dry off. Still shaking. I start pacing. "I need to figure out what to do. What do I do? I cannot pull this thing out of my own skin. Simply cannot." I send "J" a text message. If it's at all possible for a text message to convey hysteria, this one did. I made sure to use the appropriate punctuation and caps to ensure he understood I. WAS. FREAKING. OUT.

He calls me. He tells me to get some tweezers and pull gently. I try to explain as calmly as possible that there is no way on this green earth that I can possibly pull this thing out of my own leg. Within minutes, he's in the apartment ready to perform an extraction. We go into the bathroom and shut the door. He sits on the tub, me on the toilet. I drape my leg over his and turn the other way. About to pass out, I try to focus on anything except the feeling of him pulling at this thing that has buried itself under my skin. I am going white. I can feel the blood rushing from my head. I can feel the food I've consumed over the past 3 days coming back up with a vengeance.

I realize at this very moment - with my leg draped over the tub, hair soaking wet, hysterical and about to pass out from the trauma of this situation - that if this guy stays with me after this, it must be love. He never loses patience or his cool. As I am freaking out, he's kissing my knee, never letting go of the tick. He's gently pulling, trying to coax the tick to let go of my skin. What seems like a lifetime later (partly because as he pulled harder, I could feel the tick latching on, reluctant to let go) he got it out. And I immediately stumble to the couch, lay down and put my feet up in the air to prevent myself from losing consciousness. I was that close.

I took my time and got ready for work. I called the urgent care and went over to be tested for Lyme disease. It was everything a Monday should be.

A few hours later as I was sitting at my desk, the Brad Paisley song comes to my head (thanks to my best friend in Kville). I start to laugh as I remember the lines: "I'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers. I'd like to check you for ticks." Maybe that's what "J" had in mind when he suggested a 20-mile bike ride through the woods of Vermont...