Tonight we had a tick burning.

Nick had ridden horses for a Boy Scout merit badge. He excitedly raced through all the events of the evening and then looked down to his jeans and asked, "Mom, uh...is this a tick on my jeans?" I took a look. Yup.

I went for the tweezers, picked up the specimen, and went to the stove top for a quick flame. No more tick. Nick was watching over my shoulder. "Cool, Mom! Why did you do that?" I wanted to say, "Because I'm a pyro," just to see what he'd say. However, I just explained that it was the only way to kill the tick through its exoskeleton (or whatever that's called). I spent the remainder of the night glancing here and there to make sure Mr. Tick didn't have any friends with him...