# Get off me you bloodsucking limer!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [May 9, 2002, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084 "2002-05-09T14:49:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/1 "2002-05-09T14:49:37Z")
I went for a run yesterday, and while subsequently eating dinner, I felt something crawling up my leg heading for my nether regions.
It was a tick. I grabbed it, looked him in his beady little eyes and said “Gotcha, you sonovabitch!”
I then crushed his ass on the counter because the only good tick is a dead tick. I used to flush them down the toilet, but you know what? Sometimes they crawl back out!
Now I do it right.
When you go after a tick, you better make sure you finish the job.
As I sat there eating my chicken I got angry at that tick. Why’s he gotta go starting trouble, and trying to eat me? Doesn’t he know it’s not nice to eat your fellow creatures?
No. There’s no hypocrisy in that statement. I’m at the top of the goddamn foodchain. Anything beneath me is mine for the eating by the right of evolutionary advancement.
That tick though, is trying to poach **up** the foodchain when he takes a bite out of me. Damn cheater. Same goes for those tapeworms, liverflukes, leaches, etc, etc.
That chicken should be honored I’ve decided to increase its evolutionary velocity by making its flesh my own. I know if I was a chicken, I’d want to be me. Who wants to be a tick?
Who wants to devolve to the level of a parasitic arachnid?
After dinner I checked myself pretty carefully, but no more ticks. When I run it’s hard for them to grab me. Maybe a lucky one will latch onto a sock and climb up my leg when I’m resting later, but other than that, it’s hard to grab onto a sweaty moving target.
Later I get ready to go to bed and Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!
There’s three fucking Limers sucking on me.
I find all three as I stand there naked.
Number one is under my nipple. I pull him out and smash him flat with a bottle of Ban roll on.
There’s one on my back and I can just barely reach it. I squish him between my fingernails.
The other one is in my crotch right on the inside thigh where my leg meets the pelvis. The skin is tender there, but I yank him out, place him on the porcelain and fry him with a bic lighter.
From what I’ve read it takes 24 hours for the ticks to firmly embed themselves and start sucking blood. none of these guys were engorged, so I guess I got 'em in time.
Goddamn deevolved limers! Go kill your own protein! Don’t steal mine!
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### Author:  [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/2 "2002-05-09T14:54:40Z")
I prescribe fire, and lots of it!
But you’re way ahead of me with your bic lighter. Good man, good man. The next step is to improvise a flamethrower with an aerosol can and said bic lighter.
You’ll know when you need it.
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### Author:  [@Skerri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skerri)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/3 "2002-05-09T14:59:47Z")
Eew. Eew eew eew!
The last time I had dealings with a tick was back at Girl Scout camp (many moons ago), where someone stuck a lit match on a big ol’ hairy tick on a girl’s armpit. Gah! The horror!
I’m going to go boil myself now. Thanks for the heebie jeebies!
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### Author:  [@Tequila\_Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tequila_Mockingbird)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/4 "2002-05-09T15:19:19Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Scylla \*
> \*\* Who wants to be a tick? \*\*
SPOOOOOON!
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/5 "2002-05-09T15:54:54Z")
The tick is actually _ **above** _ you in the food chain (by definition), brain size and tool use don’t figure in the reckoning.
If you really want to turn the tables, you have to eat the tick.
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### Author:  [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/6 "2002-05-09T16:01:16Z")
I hope there isn’t any Lyme disease in your area. :eek:
As for tick disposal methods, my favorite is to hold the little bastard with a tweezers, and light it up on the gas stove.
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### Author:  [@Demise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Demise)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/7 "2002-05-09T16:02:23Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mangetout \*
> \*\*If you really want to turn the tables, you have to eat the tick. \*\*
I actually thought that’s what **Scylla** was working up to.
“The tick tried to eat me, so I TAUGHT HIM A LESSON!” _chew chew chew_
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### Author:  [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/8 "2002-05-09T19:50:30Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I hope there isn’t any Lyme disease in your area.
Yes, there is. My understanding though is that the dog ticks (the big ones that you can see) won’t give it to you.
It’s the teeny tiny deer ticks that’ll give you Lyme.
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### Author:  [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/9 "2002-05-09T19:55:22Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mangetout \*
> \*\*The tick is actually _ **above** _ you in the food chain (by definition), brain size and tool use don’t figure in the reckoning.
>
> If you really want to turn the tables, you have to eat the tick. \*\*
Ticks are arachnids. Spiders. Spiders are supposed to eat flies. Ticks are circumventing evolution and cheating when they try to steal blood from us highly evolved uber-organisms. In fact they are abominations in the eyes of science, subject to approbrium, scorn, and contempt for their feeble and ingracious maladaptations. No real scientists take them seriously.
They’re completely off the foodchain, and have gone outlaw.
Sheesh. Do yourself a favor and learn your science before you go off posting half-baked crackpot opinions, ok?
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### Author:  [@Kamandi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamandi)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/10 "2002-05-09T20:03:22Z")
The only real solution is to wear a wetsuit when you run.
Or completely cover your body in duct tape.
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### Author:  [@BeerFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeerFan)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/11 "2002-05-09T20:07:54Z")
Scylla,
When I was a kid and went camping a lot we would always come home with ticks. My dad would use kerosene to get the ticks off of us. A little kerosene on them and they will back right out of you, and conveniently they are now soaked in a flammable liquid so they fire up nicely. My dad used kerosene because pulling them out can sometimes break off their shitty little blood sucking heads inside you and that can get infected.
/Beavis and Butthead/ Heh, Heh, Mangetout said tool /Beavis and Butthead/
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### Author:  [@elf6c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elf6c)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/12 "2002-05-09T21:45:57Z")
Ticks are the bain of a mountain biker’s existence.
I prefer the smashing to the burning technique. GRRRRRR HULK SMASH!
_-me_
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### Author:  [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/13 "2002-05-09T21:56:52Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Tequila Mockingbird \*
> \*\*
>
> SPOOOOOON! \*\*
Cool! And I get to be Arthur, the world’s best moth side-kick. The world’s _only_, I bet.
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### Author:  [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/14 "2002-05-09T22:15:03Z")
Good gawd, man, where are you running that has spawned so many ticks? The African plains?
Actually, pulling them out is frowned upon because their little evil heads sometimes may stay in and cause an infection.
BTW, be sure to check the insides of your ears. Now _that’s_ a tricky place to extract a tick. Who knew your ear could bleed like that?
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### Author:  [@Kamandi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamandi)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/15 "2002-05-09T22:23:44Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by BeerFan \*
> **A little kerosene on them and they will back right out of you, and conveniently they are now soaked in a flammable liquid so they fire up nicely. My dad used kerosene because pulling them out can sometimes break off their shitty little blood sucking heads inside you and that can get infected.**
> [@](#):
>
> _Originally posted by PunditLisa_
> \*\*Actually, pulling them out is frowned upon because their little evil heads sometimes may stay in and cause an infection. \*\*
That’s odd. I’d always heard that you should **never** use kerosene or other stuff to smother the tick, because that may cause it to “vomit” inside the wound before it lets you go. Urk.
I’ve been told the proper tecnique is to grasp the tick firmly with a pair of tweezers as near the skin as possible, and pull gently but firmly to extract the tick intact. I know the method works, because I’ve done it myself lots of times.
[Here’s how to remove a tick](http://www.lyme.org/ticks/removal.html).
> [@](#):
>
> \*\*If the mouthparts break off in the skin - should I dig them out? \*\*
>
> We have heard two competing opinions about this.
>
> One viewpoint states that the mouthparts can cause a secondary infection, and should be removed as if it was a splinter.
>
> Another viewpoint was shared with us by a pediatrician in a hyperendemic area. He states that parents can do more harm by trying to hold down a child and dig out the mouthparts with a needle. He instructs his families to leave the mouthparts, and that they will come out on their own as the skin sloughs off.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2002, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/16 "2002-05-09T23:08:13Z")
“Get off me you bloodsucking limer!”
And here I thought this was going to be another anti-Pjen thread. Oh well, this is somewhat more interesting.
As you must know, there are tapeworms, liver flukes, leeches and even ticks for whom you are a primary and intended target. It’s not “cheating” if Scylla is on the Intelligent Design Menu.
The worst tick episode of my life was in Texas, when the little monsters glommed on to our canines and were brought into the house to breed and feed. For awhile there I was yanking off 10-20 a night (from the critters) and an occasional one that decided to sample human precious bodily fluids. We eventually had to call the Bug Man with his flamethrowers and toxic nuclear waste to eliminate the problem.
Scylla, just mow your damn grass more than every two months and you’ll be fine.
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### Author:  [@BeerFan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeerFan)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2002, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/17 "2002-05-10T14:17:02Z")
Kamandi,
I was going more for the flaming tick aspect of things as the op was describing the demise of the critters. I’m aware that now days the prescribed method is the tweezer pull. I’ve never heard the “vomiting in the wound” business before. Wouldn’t a tick need to inject its host with some sort of anti coagulant anyway to keep the blood flowing, and couldn’t that be described as vomiting? Just curious.
BeerFan
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### Author:  [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2002, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/18 "2002-05-10T15:36:05Z")
Did you know that ticks don’t give a shit about microwaves? Last year I removed one from my stomach, and to teach him a lesson, I put him in the microwave. I turned it on high and hit the button.
Nothing.
He just kept strolling around the saucer apparently oblivious to the fact that he ought to be extra crispy by now. I had to resort to the stove top to fry the little sucker.
It’s hard to defeat an enemy when they’re so dumb that they don’t know they outta be dead.
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### Author:  [@Kamandi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamandi)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2002, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/get-off-me-you-bloodsucking-limer/108084/19 "2002-05-10T17:34:20Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by BeerFan \*
> **I was going more for the flaming tick aspect of things as the op was describing the demise of the critters. I’m aware that now days the prescribed method is the tweezer pull.**
Fair enough, but you _did_ previously say:
> [@](#):
>
> **A little kerosene on them and they will back right out of you**
I was just pointing out that according to today’s experts, that’s a no-no.
> [@](#):
>
> **I’ve never heard the “vomiting in the wound” business before. Wouldn’t a tick need to inject its host with some sort of anti coagulant anyway to keep the blood flowing, and couldn’t that be described as vomiting? Just curious.**
Okay, I admit that the “vomiting in the wound” thing is just something I heard somewhere, so it may be total bull. I wasn’t able to find any reference to it while looking for sites on proper tick removal. I apologise for including it.