Trip Report
Friday, May 27, 2005 by darcoPosted in Personal
As I mentioned in my earlier post, I've been out of town for the past week or so. The first place I went to was Toledo, Ohio to examine and research the way that Yoder Machinery handles their inventory, so as to make sure that whatever website I make for them will interface nicely with it. I had a lot of fun in Toledo, and it looks like I will be returning there sometime in the middle of next month to finish up their website and get it deployed. After my two days in Toledo I flew out to Raleigh, North Carolina to be with my mom and see the Botts family, who are friends of ours.
So here I am, out in the boonies of North Carolina in a log cabin with my mom and Dewy & Dottie Botts. This cabin was originally located elsewhere and was moved here and rebuilt by Dewy Botts around twenty years ago. Parts of the structure are over a hundred years old. The shower head is located on the side of the cabin so if you want to take a shower, you do so outside. The floor gives a bit in some places, causing the things in the cabinets to make an oddly satisfying rattle. It really is quite cozy, like living in a different era.
This cabin was the long-time vacation get-away for Dewy and Dottie Botts until two years ago, when they decided to move out here and call this cabin their home. It truly is a different lifestyle than I am use to, but different is not always bad.
Dewy Botts is amazing, and is the perfect example of what one can accomplish if one is always doing. He recently purchased some land adjacent to his property that had some rotting structures on it. I felt like doing some manual labor, so I donned some overalls and a crowbar and helped him with tearing them down.
While we were taking our lunch break, Dewy saw a tick crawling on my overall straps. Later outside, I found three more ticks crawling on me looking for a good spot to feed. When you kill a tick using a lighter, they make a very satisfying "pop" as they explode. Despite the fact that I examined myself closely and even taken a shower, it would become apparent the next morning that I had missed one.
The Tick
Ticks are everywhere out here, they are just a fact of life. Dewy has had over thirty ticks over the last year; all neatly dated, cataloged, and preserved in scotch tape on a sheet of notebook paper. This is necessary because ticks carry diseases such as lime disease and rocky mountain spotted fever. If he were to get sick, the doctors would like to examine the ticks to see if he caught something from a tick.
On May 27th, I woke up a bit later than usual. Kinda groggy, I sat up, stretched, and started to make my way to bathroom. I got to the toilet, unzipped my pants and was about to urinate when I noticed something.
There was a tick—on end of my penis!
I cursed loudly, I couldn't believe my eyes. Of all of the places that the tick could have latched onto, it had to be there. That bastard!
I gave Dewy a call on my cell phone, and told him that I found a tick in "a rather unfortunate spot", being as vague as possible.
"Well, everybody has their own way of removing ticks," explained Dewy matter-of-factly, "most people just use tweezers. I just put some rubbing alcohol on it, get my fingernail up under it and scrape em' off real quick."
I cringed. "Um, well the problem is that the tick is...on my penis."
"Oh," Dewy paused, "well, it should be just the same as anywhere else. At least it is where you can see it. I can come out and help you take it off if you want"
I quickly declined, and told him I'd be able to figure it out myself. A few moments after hanging up, Dottie and my mother came back to the cabin. I figured I would ask for their advice.
Dottie immediately recalled Dewy's removal method, and thankfully recommended against it. Instead, she had two other options: Use tweezers to grab its head and yank it out, or light a match and burn it, causing it to flip out and let go. Lighting a match near my genitals generally sounded like a bad idea, so tweezers it was.
Long story short, I grabbed the tick with my tweezers, and yanked the bastard off. It didn't hurt too much, it just made a rather excruciating "snap" as it disconnected from, well, you know.
Damn ticks. Damn dirty ticks.
I'll be back in town on Monday.