Early Warning, this essay has not been fact checked so it be interesting and funnier. I did my own research. I Googled until I found things that agreed with what I wanted.
I was bitten by a tick, removed it, then flushed it down the toilet, along with some of my blood. There was a case of a murderer who killed a woman in her apartment, and a tick was found with his DNA inside the bedroom where she was murdered. I can see a sweating defense attorney cross examining a tiny arachnid on the witness stand.
The flushed tick came up in a conversation and a friend told me ticks don’t drown. That led me to having a vision of my septic tank with a layer of writhing ticks at the bottom.
This led me to doing a Google search for how long ticks can go without food and one species has, so far, gone twenty-seven years. But their life span is three years in some cases. This is why fact checking this is problematic.
Up until three or four years ago, ticks were never a real problem here in this part of South Georgia, but now, I have to hose myself down with chemicals to work in the yard. The yard, not the woods, and it’s getting worse. The dogs and one cat are on preventives, but there are a lot of ticks out there right now.
At some point, millions of years from now, alien archaeologists are going to dig up my septic tank and discover a concrete pit with a thick layer of fossilized ticks at the bottom, buried in human waste. Why did ancient humans build these structures? Was it religious in nature? Why did they keep so many tiny bugs in these pits? Were these creatures pets? Was some ritual performed, and many of the members of the religion bound to bring one as a token of their spirituality? An alien describes to the others the ritual of blood, where members of the sect travel long distances, bring a small jar or bottle, containing the Holy Bug of Blood, and lovingly placing it into the pit with the millions of others, and then burying it. It would be regarded as a sign of piety for a human’s blood to be found in many pits, and the investigation would begin to discover if humans traveled long distances, and why some locations showed no sign of the ritual being performed at all. Did wars break out over this, and some places at odd with those who refused the ritual?
Or perhaps, humans kept their DNA in these creatures and buried them hoping they would gain immortality in some way. I can see the aliens now, scratching their heads, both of them, with all seven hands, wondering how the ticks got there.
And then one discovers a tick has survived and is attached to his fifth leg. The alien screams in horror.
Take Care,
Mike
It’s looking as if ticks, roaches and alligators and possibly a few species of sharks will have run of the planet in the end days. I keep hearing if it bleeds you can kill it, but any time I have ever encountered a tick and tried to squash it, it isn’t their own blood that comes out. True survivors.
Chick, no lie, five years ago I could have counted the ticks I pulled off me on one hand, and that was in twenty years. Now it’s like one a day if I’m not careful, and I have to take my clothes off in front of the washing machine to do that well.
Be careful with getting bit by a tick. I heard one tick in Texas can pass along an allergy to red meat.
he’s in Georgia – Maybe risking an allergy to Barbeque?
A fate worse than death,
Alpha Gal-2 is what they call it. I knew someone who had it and it lasted three years. Anything, anything at all cow,pig, goat, sheep, it didn’t matter. The smell of cooking meat made him sick.
Any tick I pick off of me or mine gets cut in half. Please don’t tell me each half grows a new tick.