Harbinger Of Spring

It's official. Spring is here. I pried the season's first tick off my left lateral thigh area this morning. I cry shenanigans. Visitors to the Mansion will recall that the ticks here feed almost exclusively on Hillbilly Mom blood. It is some type of kick@ss arachnid elixir that they absolutely crave. Never mind that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom rarely steps a toe off the porch except to enter the garage and T-Hoe. Never mind that Farmer H spends more time outdoors than Woodrow McCall, Gus McCrae, and Pea Eye Parker on a pilgrimage from Texas to Montana.

You would think that Farmer H's horde of fowl would keep the arachnids in check. That's why he hoards them, you see. It's his excuse: "They eat ticks out of the yard." Perhaps they would, indeed, if Farmer H didn't overfeed them like he overfeeds all of his animals. That pregnant goat, Goatrude, has not birthed a young 'un yet. I'm sure the gestation period of a goat is less than the 11 months that she has enjoyed Mansion life, even though she eats like a horse. Farmer H bought himself a fat goat and called her pregnant. And those 22 chickens strut around the yard, squawking and scratching, letting the ticks have their way with HM. It is OH SO UNFAIR!

Maybe I could join a scientific study and get paid to let ticks latch onto my flesh. They're going to do it anyway. I might as well get something out of it. Turn it from a parasitic relationship to one of mutualism. Remember those old commercials for Deep Woods Off, where some idiot stuck his arm into an aquarium of mosquitoes? Maybe he was mosquito fodder anyway, and chose to cash in on his special talent. Which is different from a 'special purpose'. Just ask Steve Martin as Navin Johnson in The Jerk.