The Ticking H-Bomb

Once again, Mrs. HM is the innocent victim! A bite victim! Make that a quadruple bite victim!!! In any case, a VICTIM! Probably the target of Farmer H trying to kill me again, with all the denial he's shoveling my way!

Monday, I found a TICK on my left ankle bone! It was just before Farmer H came to the living room short couch at 5:45 a.m. I knew there had been itching, but did not expect to find a tick! It was a tiny one, hardly visible without my bifocals. The kind we call "seed ticks" around here.

Tuesday morning, right after Farmer H left the Mansion at 4:30 for his election duties, I found another tick! This time on my right ankle, on the back, just above the heel area. What in the Not-Heaven??? Any self-respecting tick should know better than to attach in such a barren landscape! The thin dry skin over the ankle bone, and the tough dry skin above the heel.

But wait! The nightmare is not over!

Wednesday morning, right after Farmer H headed out to buy his clandestine donut(s) and work on the Beauty Shop, I found a third tick! On my right ankle. The front this time. AND, just an hour later, I found one on my left hip!!! 

SWEET GUMMI MARY! Where are these ticks coming from??? Let the record show that I leave the Mansion once a day, for about an hour. I do not step off of pavement. 

Farmer H, on the other hand, galivants across Hillmomba, spending a lot of time in the grass of the front yard, BARn field, and back yard around POOLIO. He mows grass. He works in the yard of the Beauty Shop. 

When I asked Farmer H where I was getting these ticks, he immediately said,

"I ain't had no ticks all summer!"

"Yeah. They always get on ME! Somehow, you must be bringing them in the house."

"You get 'em from them dogs."

"I pet the dogs once a day. For maybe five minutes, or less. I don't pet them with my feet! I used one hand, because I'm holding my purse and water with the other one, and GROCERIES, too! Ticks don't climb down. They climb up. They're not going down to my ankle from my hand. They'd go up my arm, probably to my head. It's like they get on me, and immediately attach at my ankles. Or climb up to my hip. I'm not walking through grass. It's like they must be on the carpet."

"It's gotta be the dogs."

"You pet them too! They jump on you!"

"You're the one who's got the ticks."

Yeah. How does that happen? I've tried to think of every angle. I don't think I'm getting them from the bed. There are no ticks on me when I get up and go to the shower. None on me when I get out of the shower and put on lotion and my socks. I'm always in shoes for town, or CROCS for here, except when I take off my town shoes and walk to the master bathroom to change clothes, or have a nap. I park my CROCS beside the sink, next to where Farmer H piles his dirty tighty-whities and socks before washing. Maybe they are hitching a ride on my CROCS that I put back on when I get home from town.

I don't think I suddenly started getting ticks off the dogs. Farmer H has treated them with the between-the-shoulders flea and tick med. Nothing about my routine has changed. Yet Farmer H has been working at POOLIO for weeks now.

Excuse me. I'm feeling itchy...