Ohh icky icky, my skin is crawling just thinking about it

[thegayhare]

Summer is here and that means certain problems have shown up.

Last year it was fleas, and I mean lots and lots of fleas.  this year it seems to be ticks.  While doing yard work in the past couple weeks my mom and her boyfreind have both found ticks on them.  My sis even found one on her after a breif walk round the yard.  I've started washing and frontlining the animals as a precuation.   Well since I've been doing my fair share of yard work I've been checking myself for the creepy little bastards nightly and I felt lucky to have dodged the bullet.  but just 2 minutes ago I was laying in bed my laptop on my belly I happened to look up and peering down at me from the from the top of the laptop screen was a big fat juicy tick...

*shudders*

oh god I hate those little bastards.  I swear I can still feel stuff crawling on me now.  just seeing one is enough to get me all squidgy and squirmy...

It looks like it's gonna be anouther banner year for bugs so everybunny out there keep an eye out for the bastards and take care

[shadowterm]

I can relate, I have a serious case of entomophobia. I love spiders, I'm fine with gastropods, but those six legged things freak the shit out of me.

Side note: Firefox spell check doesn't think entomophobia is a word. The four suggestions were: homophobia, entomological, entomologist, and homophobic. Thanks firefox, I'll keep in mind that I should apparently scare myself shitless according to the first and last options your spell check gave me.

[TheDXM]

I have an outdoor cat, and he managed to bring one of these into my bed yesterday. Fortunately I managed to catch it crawling around before it snuck up on me. What's worse is they commonly spread lime disease in this area. I definitely hate fleas more though, you just can't keep them away no matter what you do, short of keeping an immaculate indoor pet and if you're not careful they can totally infest your place. I remember when I was younger my family kept a lot more animals and didn't exactly maintain the place to be too clean otherwise. I'd get attacked in swarm sometimes just for walking barefooted across the room. Blech.

It almost makes you wish Winter was back, with the mugginess and nasty critters. I can just hope that the outdoor fun can balance it out.

[superluser]

My mother in PA was talking about them, too.

Looks like it will be a big year, indeed.

[shadowterm]

You know what would be hilarious? Out of nowhere a version of influenza that never got any media attention becomes communicable through ticks and fleas and a real epidemic starts. Problem is, when the news reports it, only complete retards listen because everyone else is tired of being played. The up-side is that this means about 30-40% of the U.S. population would live (come on, you've seen the pictures of people in gas masks.) The down side is a situation much like idiocracy, sans the centuries leading up.

[Janus Whitefurr]

I'd point and laugh, but... I'm Australian.

EVERYthing here wants to kill us.

[shadowterm]

Especially Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw. He doesn't play games. Oh, wait, that's exactly what he does. Then he rants about it for a few hours.

[Lysander]

My mother spent a couple years in Australia, she has some fun spider stories among other things. But yeah, I don't like bugs that suck blood. I've had a mosquito just land on the palm of my hand for an instant before I cast it aside and that was enough time for the bite. Don't ever get a mosquito bite on the palm of your hand... Luckily I have yet to deal with ticks.   

[Alondro]

A version of influenza that could go through an insect vector is much LESS scary than the current one, which can spread through nothing more than a cough.

Anyway, here in NJ we have so far this year swarms of ticks and very large and aggressive gnats in huge numbers.  I've never scene gnats like this, they're big, they cover every inch of skin they can find, and their bites itch like hell.

And mosquito season is about to start too!  And deer fly season!  And then the sand fleas, which are likely to be as bad or worse than last year!  Oh joy!   Well, looks like I won't be going outside much this summer.   

At least the gypsy moth caterpillars look like they are far fewer in number.  But I think that's becuase they killed off most of the trees already and starved to death.