[Note: For the two of you who read this blog and don’t know what a tick is, imagine an alien species. It sucks blood for sustenance, digging its entire head into its victim’s body to do so. Should you attempt to remove this alien, it will do its best to leave its head inside of you, voluntarily undergoing a beheading in the hopes of giving you an infection that could lead to your death. Should you be lucky enough to extract the alien with its head intact, you may still be in serious trouble: the alien may well have infected you with a debilitating disease which will be with you the rest of your life. And, of course, there is the small matter that this little alien is nearly impossible to kill; the Internet abounds with advice on how to do so, much of which involves the use of the phrase “burn it alive. This alien? A tick. They are horrible.]

Drawing of tick attacking city may not be to scale.
Drawing of tick attacking city may not be to scale.

When I woke up this morning to write this post, I had every intention of writing about an incident several weeks ago, in which I found something on Choppy’s snout. The thing on her snout was oddly shaped, soft to the touch, and seemingly showed up overnight.

Always rational, I immediately determined Choppy had cancer. The Internet – always rational as well – only confirmed my initial diagnosis.

The next day, though, I took Choppy to work, where one of my co-workers determined that the thing growing on Choppy’s snout was not cancer, but a tick. She promptly dug into Choppy’s snout and pulled the thing out with her bare hands before unceremoniously flushing it down the toilet, thus helping Choppy but preventing me from getting a picture for all of you.

And then, petting Choppy this morning, I felt a bump on her back.

After my initial reaction (cancer, obviously), I dug into her fur, and there it was: a tick.

This? Not cancer. It's a tick.
This? Not cancer. It’s a tick.

Less bold than my co-worker, I went to find some tweezers with which to extract the thing. It turns out, when it comes to small insects that are potentially life-threatening and nearly impossible to kill, I would rather not touch them.

This is what it looked like coming out. So gross. I flushed it down the toilet, as I didn't think the apartment people would be happy to see me burning insects alive on the patio.
This is what it looked like coming out. So gross. I flushed it down the toilet, as I didn’t think the apartment people would be happy to see me burning insects alive on the patio.
This is Choppy moping after I pulled the tick out of her. Apparently, she enjoyed having a blood sucking parasite living on her so much that she wandered around for a while feeling sorry for herself. Or the tick.
This is Choppy moping after I pulled the tick out of her. Apparently, she enjoyed having a blood sucking parasite living on her so much that she wandered around for a while feeling sorry for herself. Or the tick.

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