AMPUTATION OR LYME DISEASE (EDITED)

**Since Dan doesn't have his own blog (livejournal, apparently, doesn't count), I am taking it upon myself to regale you all with a story recently told to me by the one and only Dan Quixote (even if some British imp did take that blog name. PRAT! ("I prefer the term 'Renob' but.. it's your blog. Do you self-censor your content?") - Obviously not).
**NEW AND IMPROVED WITH COMMENTS FROM DAN D!

One day, a long, long time ago, way back in the days of high school, ("This was last fall, yea, I was 23.") young Dan had a problem. This was no ordinary problem. Well, to be fair, it really was a rather ordinary problem but not one you're likely to find living in the city. No, our hero, Dan, had a problem that is usually only likely to occur out in the country. Dan developed a tick. In his thigh. About three inches above the back of his knee. Right were he just couldn't get a good angle.

Now, anyone who has ever lived in the country or at least gone camping knows you can't just pull out a tick because it's head will pop off in your skin and no girl wants a boy who has a infected, festering tick head deep in his flesh. What to do? Fortunately for our young hero, he had heard rumor that if you were to smear Vaseline on a tick, it wouldn't be able to breath and would release it precarious hold. Unfortunately, Dan didn't have any Vaseline. He had Neosporin, and he thought, "that's close enough", so on he smeared it across his tiny foe. And the tick wiggled a little. And then nothing happened.

Never one to be nonplused, Dan thought maybe he could PISS THE TICK OFF BY SPRAYING IT WITH BUG REPELLENT. ("I wiped most of the neosporin off, but you can never get it all off.") For some odd reason, that, too, did not have the desired effect.

In a stroke of BRILLIANCE! our hero thought, "I can BURN the tick off!" And I know what your thinking. He JUST SPRAYED BUG REPELLENT ON HIS LEG, and I assure you he, too, thought of this.

Then, he thought, "f**k it." ("Yes, I did say something very similar to this but remember, I didn't think the repellent would burn that much because the propellant in the can is what usually burns.")

He held an O-P-E-N F-L-A-M-E to his leg in the GENERAL VACINITY of where the tick was located. For those of you unfamiliar, our young hero is a very hairy man and I HAVE to assume he was also a rather hairy teenage ("23."). No, no, I'm actually quite certain he was, in fact, a VERY hairy teenager ("Is that really necessary?" - Yes), as well. His leg lit in a blaze of bug repellent and blondish brown hair ("My leg hair is calico."). He beat down the flames only to find THE TICK WAS STILL THERE.

And you will never, EVER guess what our young hero did next.

He held the open flame to his leg - AGAIN - under the assumption he had burnt off all the fuel by this point. His leg errupted like a forest fire seeking it's way ever higher.

After successfully going Smokey the Bear on his own ass, one might think our young hero gave up, but he had one more trick up his sleeve. He wadded ("It was more a roll.") up a piece of paper, lit it, and HELD IT TO HIS OWN LEG, burning himself in the process. The tick was still there.

Only then did our hero think to CALL AND ASK SOMEONE TO HELP HIM ("Well, I had tried everything else."). He called his parents, nice people, and asked if they had any more ideas. They suggested he come down to the barbeque they were at so some old farmer could take care of it for him. Oh! And while he was at it, he could get a sandwich, too. He drove to the party where his parents and the parents of kids he went to school with were and let this farmer yank this tick from his leg in a manner that required REMOVING A CHUNK OF SKIN WITH IT and all Dan could think was, "this farmer must think I'm a really big pussy." ("True.. and I also suspected the other guests at the barbeque were wondering, 'How the f**k did this kid survive six week in a third world country by himself if a tick causes his testicles to retract?'")

At this point, our hero should have left the party, head down, shame faced, and headed to the asylum of his own embarrassment but someone at the party just HAD to go and offer him a sandwich.

The story SHOULD end here, but it doesn't. Oh God, it doesn't.

The party then moved indoors because the host thought it appropriate to subject the various guests to the Blue Collar Comedy Tour and a sketch in particular where the four members make references to their decks ("You know, what's off the back of a house." -Dan D.) which was really just a "clever" ruse to hide the fact that they were talking about their dicks. Deck, dick, who knew? So he watched this sketch. In a small room. With his parents.

After it was over, he commented to the guy next to him that he'd just reached "a whole new level of awkward". ("My family isn't really the dick joke kind of family. If someone made 'A man from Nantucket' reference at the dinner table, I do believe they would be ostracized.")

I love hicks and ticks. God bless America.