I went camping over the weekend with the Boy Scouts.
Sorry for the terrible picture… I have some much better ones, but I feel like posting pictures of the guys online would not be the best way to endear myself to the troop parents…. Maybe they wouldn’t care, but lets don’t find out eh?
There are a lot of things I probably could say about the trip, but I wanted to keep this post focused. The single biggest takeaway I have is this:
I hate ticks.
Not on me, or even dug into me… just the idea. It is a terrible moment when you realize your going to have to explain ticks to the new guy (or in this case, the new parent)
It’s terrible. I have gotten to explain ticks quite a few times in my outdoor career, and you can just see the, ah, subject start to get the heebie-jeebies and involuntarily start checking their scalp.
it’s hard to be honest and downplay the things:
“oh don’t mind those!”
“what are they?”
“ah, parasitical arachnids… you know, just part of nature!”
“whahh!? are they poisonous?”
“No, no… well there is the lime disease thing, but nothing to worry about…”
So, the conversation is going to be unavoidably alarming, and then, it always turns out I am blessed with whatever trait it is that makes me unattractive to bugs to begin with, so despite the people around me finding ticks left and right, I never had to deal with one. It makes it that much harder to demonstrate the proper stoic response to our spider-like adversary.
Ignoring some minor disappointments I had over the reaction to ticks, I had fun on the camp out. Not quite the laid-back peaceful trip I had been imagining, but I continue to be impressed by the group of boys I am working with… it makes up for not getting much time to read 🙂
-Jordan
Footnote: Heebie-jeebies must be a word, because it’s on Wikipedia!
Nelsons 