Thanks, Patch

On a random summer day during my high school years, I woke up one sunny morning around 11am as usual. The three sisters were all in one room: Jess, Jen and Patch, yep, the dog. Patch was definitely an inside dog, but was fond of her summer evenings stretched out in the backyard. The night before had been nothin' out of the ordinary - no lake trips, forest visits, or mingling with other animals. Or so we thought...

After realizing that it was much closer to pizza roll time than cereal time, I stumbled into the bathroom to tend to my face, teeth, and hair. Before my eyes had fully adjusted to the light, I felt something "funny" on my back. I reached back, expecting to simply scratch the area to relieve the sensation. Much to my surprise, I felt an actual "something!" Ew! What the? Did this come from innocent little Patch?! From my own backyard?! My natural instinct immediately kicked in, turning my fingers into a very tense, awkward, flicking motion to rid whatever was "hanging-out" on my skin. The full blown panick attack set in when I realized that my flicking was not even phasing this tiny creature on my spine. "Jeeeeeess!" I screamed in need of help. "Loooooook!" (yes, all my words were very loud and drawn out.) To sum up this part of the story: My sister and I had both learned that there was a very "sucky" tick on my back, and we were both violently afraid of unidentified, sucking creatures... namely, ticks.

We did what any other almost-adult-teenagers would do: Called our mom at work in complete hysterics. Mom worked her wonders of calming us down and proceeded to instruct us on "removing" the uninvited guest gettin' a free piggy-back ride. Something about lighting a match? The open flame didn't scare me at all... in fact, it was a relief from the feeling of claustrophobic-insect-fear that was gripping me. After too many failed attempts, burned skin, and a stubborn tick, we remained at square one. The three of us had limited knowledge of the intentions and actions of ticks, but we knew we weren't supposed to just pull him out.

Square two led us to jumping in the car and driving 10 minutes to mom's office. Without Mom having any time to yell at us for how late we slept in and little we had accomplished, she had a heart-to-heart with our little friend (or enemy). I knew my mom had no more answers when she typed our family doctor's number into her phone. "On lunch?!" she states in question, slamming the phone down. "Well girls, there is only one option left... I'm calling 911." I didn't think my eyes could grow ANY wider, but they did. I stood there frozen, envisioning an ambulance and stretcher... all for this tiny bug. "911, what's your emergency," Mom heard on the other end and replied with, "Yeah, hi, can you tell me how to get a tick off of my daughter's back?! Please? Quickly?" The nice lady on the other end of the phone probably secretly laughed and replied, "Oh, just grab some tweezers and yank him out!" (exactly what we thought you weren't supposed to do). After mom thanked the lady and assured her that we did not need a squad, I finally saw some light at the end of the tunnel.

The tweezers were applied, and that little sucky-villan came right out, head and all. SICK. With one flush of the toilet, we watched "Toby" swim out of our lives forever. Yep, mom had named him. After all the time and emotions spent on him, I guess he earned a name?

No, there is never a morning that I don't wake up and touch that spot on my back... just to be sure? Or because I have a complex? Oh well, either way.