Kristen Berube lives a crazy, laugh-filled life with her outdoorsman husband Remi and their three camo-clad children in Missoula, Montana. A graduate of Montana State University and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, she loves being a mom and enjoys hiking, fishing, and camping.
“Confessions of a Camo Queen: Living with an Outdoorsman” is her first book.
Available for purchase at: Amazon
There is almost nothing that I hate more than TICKS! I really do not understand the purpose of a tick. Is there a good reason they exist? As far as I know, all they do is suck blood and spread diseases. To me, that doesn’t really sound like a purposeful life! The mere mention of the word, TICK, gives me the willies and makes my skin crawl. For the life of me I cannot imagine why the outdoorsman is immune to the severe nastiness of ticks. For example, if he sees something that looks like a dead animal carcass or a horn sitting amongst a thorny, “ticky” bush- he will dive right in. No ifs, ands or buts, he is in there and by “in there” I mean literally, crawling in the bush as if his life depended on it! There are thorns stabbing him and ticks merrily dropping all over his back. Gross! If someone offered me a million bucks to sit in a bed of ticks for 5 minutes, I would politely scream HELL NO!
He really doesn’t even give a second thought to the fact there are little bastard ticks just waiting to gleefully jump into his hair and burrow their nasty little heads in his skin and suck his blood until they may or may not decide to leave this blood filled treat- aka-the outdoorsman. Outdoorsmen really are the perfect tick hosts. They generally are hair covered men who don’t really care much about showering when they are out on an expedition. The ticks have good cover in the man fur and a guaranteed Thanksgiving dinner for at least 2-sometimes more- days until the next shower will occur. Have you ever seen an engorged tick? It is the stuff that nightmares are made of. Words cannot even describe how incredibly foul ticks are.
Unfortunately, it never fails that if I am out in the wilds with the outdoorsman, I get the freaking tick. Life is so unfair sometimes. I think that those little bastards must like my perfume or can sense my fear. Blood full of adrenaline from tick anxiety must taste better. Cry! Cry! The outdoorsman has learned a little trick to getting a frantic peep show at any given moment. All he has to say is, “Honey, you have a tick.” I will be ripping my clothes off and frantically screaming in under 10 seconds…Guaranteed. So now I am constantly tortured by the outdoorsman yelling, “Tick” and pointing at me with a devilish gleam in his eye. My mind really does know that he most likely is lying, but I just cannot risk the chance of a tick. Body shivers…Goosebumps… Gross!
Another serious concern regarding ticks is the thought that they could latch on to some seriously private areas…If you know what I am saying. It is almost guaranteed that I will have to make a visit to the bushes to take care of some business at some point after drinking a gallon of water on a hike. IF I were to get a tick in those areas, how would I know? Who would get it out? What position would I have to be in for someone to get that out? I am turning red just thinking about it! Oh, the humiliation! No thank you!!!
Please excuse me; I must go take a shower so my skin will stop itching. Good luck and don’t forget to check for ticks!