Ticked Off

Getting ready to take yet another cold, cold shower, I felt something on my back.

A tick.

Apparently, in all of our skulking around in the weeds, grasses, shrubs and bushes surrounding the Bundi Palace, I picked up an unwelcome guest. Gah.

So of course I did all the wrong things.

I recalled that you can’t just pull a tick out. Their head is wedged inside your skin, pincers tight. Pull too hard, and the body will separate from the head. That kills the tick, of course, but it also leaves the tick’s hair inside, which can easily lead to infection.

[Wrong. Actually, thanks to belated internet research, the best thing to do when you find a tick is to pull it out, as soon as possible. Even if parts of it stay in. That’s because the longer the live tick stays in, the higher your chances of contracting diseases from it. If the head breaks off it can be removed like a splinter, or left in without much issue to come out on its own–it’s the contaminants inside a tick’s body which are a problem and which you do not want secreted inside you.]

I sent Pascal to get matches from the owner of the guest house. The idea is to light a match, extinguish it, and quickly apply the still very hot end to the tick’s backside. The theory is that this panics the tick, and they either pull out on their own or are too stunned to resist when you pull them out. It didn’t work, although Pascal did manage to burn me several times, to much cursing and jumping around.

[The match idea is actually not recommended, as it may cause the singed tick to release potentially contaminated fluids inside you.]

So I went for option two, which is to suffocate the little bugger in alcohol. Then it should be a simple matter to pull it out. Didn’t work.

[Also not recommended, for the same reason as above.]

Cursing the tenacity of Indian ticks, I decided to sleep with it. It looked dead at this point, but I wasn’t sure.

[Definitely not recommended, as the longer the tick stays in, the higher the chances of infection.]

The next morning I checked and it was still there. That’s it. I grabbed my tweezers and pried the blood-sucking bastard out. Then I ate him, just for good measure.

[Finally, the right thing! Well, except for the eating. I just made that up. But it would have been poetic justice, eh?]