A couple of days ago, I noticed an itchy bump on my back -- like maybe a mole that had gotten abraded by my bra strap or something. Scratched at it a bit and left it alone. Yesterday evening it was feeling sore, so I figured I'd scratched it too much and got it a little infected. I tried to put a bandaid on it, but couldn't see what I was doing, so I asked my sister if she could do it.

There was a brief silence, and then she said, "I hate to break it to you, but that's a tick."

/o\ /o\ /o\

She tried to remove it with tweezers -- she does it on her dogs all the time -- but by that point it'd burrowed in deep enough that its mouth parts broke off, so we had a late trip to Urgent Care to get the rest of it removed (come to find out, it's perfectly okay to leave it in and let it work out on its own, but we didn't know that) and get a dose of prophylactic antibiotics, since Lyme disease is endemic to this area and a tick that's been embedded for more than 24 hours is a higher risk than one that's discovered immediately.

*cries*

What's slightly bizarre about it -- other than on my back, really?? -- is that we haven't even been hiking since last week. I lived for years in a tick-infested area (Illinois) where I spent a bunch of time scrambling around in the woods, and she's lived for years in a tick-infested area and hikes a lot, and this is the first time either of us has gotten a tick ... after spending several days doing very little except watching anime and playing board games.

WTF, nature.