Ok, so it’s beautiful outside right now, green and warm and it’s fixing to thunderstorm the way we’ve been waiting for, and I should show you a bunch of pretty pictures of it and lament about my favorite season and all that…but it just isn’t in the cards today.
Because today I have to tell you a horrifying tale that involves my mother and a glass of wine.
Better get under your blanket, because you’re going to want to pull it over your head in a minute here.
So my family spent all day Memorial Day weekend working outside. Pops, Husband and my Father in Law were building fences, I was pressure washing everything I could pressure wash because I love shit like that, and my momma was planting flowers at her house.
Well, I don’t think I have to mention it again, but when you’re out and about in the grass on a warm spring day you’re bound to get a tick or thirty-seven.
So that’s why when we came in for lunch, we did the regular neck slap, hair scratch, take-a-look-at-my-back-do-you-see-anything check and then went on with our sandwiches and back to our business.
Well, later on that evening, after the whole house was hosed down, enough fence was repaired and mom’s flowers were in pots where they belonged, Husband and I showered up and snuggled down in our house and mom and Pops changed out of their work gear and settled in their comfy chairs to watch a movie.
Pops probably had a little whiskey and Mom poured herself a glass of red wine. She leaned back at her favorite spot on the couch, grabbed the remote and her glass of wine and took a good, long, well deserved sip, pausing for a moment after the swallow to remove what she thought was a little piece of cork stuck to her tongue.
But people. It wasn’t a cork.
No it was not.
It was a tick.
My mom had a tick in her wine and it went into her mouth.
O.M.G.
I mean, just recently Husband saw one crawling across my face and kindly mentioned it before it hit my mouth, which was disgusting enough…but not as disgusting as what happened to my mom.
She takes the cake for the most horrifying tick story on the ranch so far.
Imagine that. The woman on the ranch who goes outside the least wins the title.
Good one mom.
Good one.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 
Just today I read 3 articles about how they are more plentiful this year, and arriving earlier.
Be safe….
OMG! No, no, no! Did she swallow the sip of wine or spit it out!
Enjoy your writings Jessie.
Yes, ticks out in the East carry Lyme D. Don’t believe you have it in the West. A drunk tick is harmless. But NOT nice.
Yes, we have them in the Midwest, too.
Ticks are moving much further north in Saskatchewan. They can now be found at Prince Albert almost the middle of the province. Luckily not too many are Lyme disease carriers.
Got ’em here in Nova Scotia. Woke this morning to find one latched on to me. Sigh … I do the Tick check when we come in but I have a dark longer- haired dog like your lab and I’m sure they hitch a ride on the dog …
Glad your mom drowned it with wine !
Nothing like a tick in one’s wine, but not as bad as the following story. I once worked with a woman who liked to drink lots of coffee. She had a giant hand-made mug she was fond of. She was also known for leaving the mug about and getting back to it later. One day, she misplaced her mug, which was full of coffee. She found it much later in the day and chugged it, only to find…..a dead mouse at the bottom. The mouse had climbed up, fallen in, and sunk .
That is definitely worse. Eek!!
i’m suitably horrified ewwww
Stomach churning. I’ve been reading your blog for some time now about ticks and I just had to speak up! Your poor mom. Ticks are revolting.
Sure glad she didn’t swallow it !! Have you ever heard of a Tick making its way from the inside out ?? Yew what an awful thought !
A woman I know was washing the big coffee maker AFTER the breakfast at church. A very dead cooked bird was at the bottom. uGGHHH so glad I had not gone to coffee hour.