It’s practically a proverb in my family that if something awful can happen, it happens to me.  It is my destiny and my curse—if I believed in such things.

 It was a few months after arrival in Brazil that I sat on my bed doing my school with no idea that destiny was peering at me from behind the door, or to be more precise my knee.  Yes, that is correct.  My knee.

I was scratching the back of the knee when I felt something on it.  After looking at it I determined that whatever it was had legs and a body and its head—well, I didn’t want to think about where its head was. 

I had, of course, heard of ticks.  But I had never had a tick.  I wish I could say I handled it calmly and rationally.  I suppose I did if one considers screaming and borderline hysteria to be calm and rational.  At the time, with a tick sticking out of me, it seemed my only option.

My parents had left for the day and I was home alone with my three sisters—two older and one younger.  I threw myself upon the age and perceived wisdom of my older sisters looking to them to save me.

My sisters with all the wisdom of their advanced years had heard vague stories of what was to be done with ticks.  Upon consultation, they decided that they’d heard something about using matches.  Although such a method exists the important thing is to remember you are supposed to blow out the matches before you put it up to a person’s skin. 

They’d missed that memo and were busy applying lit matches to the back of my leg when we heard someone clapping (the Brazilian way of knocking on a door). 

They went to speak to a man from the church and I was left to contemplate the wisdom of allowing them to continue their not-so-tender ministrations and wonder if all the screaming had left the man wondering if a murder was taking place.

After two or three matches they concluded that perhaps the matches weren’t working.  It was possible even that the tick was dead.

I did not take the news well plunging further into hysteria.  I wasn’t sure what was worse.  A live tick or a dead tick.  At least, you could get a live tick out. 

The mad scientists who had taken over my sisters’ bodies then decided to try another method.  Tweezers. 

Then they had the following conversation.

“Did we get the head out?”

“Hmm, I don’t know.  Maybe.  I hope so.”

“Oh well, it’s time for our language lessons.  We have to leave now.”

I didn’t go for that.  There was no way on earth I was going to take a two mile walk to language lessons with a tick head roaming at will throughout my bloodstream.  My sisters then concluded they had most definitely gotten the head out and that I would recover. 

I did survive.  But mentally, the specter of ticks would continue to haunt me.  I love my sisters but my trust in their doctoring skills was out the window and any ache or pain I have might, might, just be a result of their shoddy quackery.

Have you ever had a tick?

Is there a story you found traumatic at the time that you now find funny?