November 15, 2008

A tick-lish subject

I hear the groans. Oh, pooh, I like a bad pun. Anyhoo, a spate of warmish rainy weather has brought the bugs back just when I thought the near frost had done them in - in the living room, a surprise mosquito trying to bite me, a tick finding its way onto the youngest one's back after a hike through the woods...and so because I feel like a nice practical and sturdy post, I will be offering advice on something on which I excel (thanks to my dogs) - tick removal.
Do not pour on gasoline. Do not use a spent match. Do not cover it in gels and goop to smother it. All of this is not useful and potentially harmful. Instead, take a tweezer (and this is where you should have invested in a decent tweezer for the house), grasp it firmly at the entry spot, and pull in a firm, steady motion. Don't freak out if you don't get the total head - don't believe me? Get Dr. Oz's take on the subject.

To get rid of the tick, I have found the best solution (since they seem notoriously hard to kill) is to drop the critter in a little bit of nail polish remover. That seems to do them in entirely. However, if you are concerned about saving it in case of Lyme disease or some other tick-related disease, just put the tick in a jar with a tight lid.

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