A swimming and flying cell phone…and 15 ticks

In only 15 minutes of beating around the underbrush I managed to gather 15 ticks. There were 5 in my hair and 10 on my clothing, inside and out. I used the dog’s comb to get them out of my hair, because the teeth of the comb are closer together than any other comb in the house. Hopefully I didn’t miss any.

I know all about ticks and the many diseases they carry, so why would I end up in dense underbrush, especially as the weather warms up? Well, it’s a weird story…

Yesterday morning my cell phone dropped out of my pocket. It happened during the morning beach walk with the dogs, probably when I bent over to pick up one of their toys or clean up after them. I realized my phone was missing after I got home. The handy Find My Phone app revealed its location on the beach, so I hurried back to locate it. Unfortunately, the tide had already come in and so despite my hopes of finding it above the tide line, I realized it was having a swimming time. Curious about how long it might last submerged, I kept checking on it. Surprisingly, it was still online even as the tide fell, several hours later. I took 3 more trips back to the beach, searching for my phone and hoping that sand wouldn’t have covered it over. But still no luck.

I checked on it again just before going to sleep…still there…still alive.

This morning when I checked, to my amazement, the phone was now on the other side of the tidal pool, in the nature reserve area! I felt sure that it must have been transported by a bird. There was no other explanation that made any sense. I took a screen shot of its location to use as a map, but sadly by time I was able to go looking for it, the battery had died, so calling the number to help find it wasn’t going to work.

And that is what lead me to tramping around in the underbrush. Despite wearing snug jeans, hiking boots and plenty of tick repellant, I still managed to gather 15 of those nasty little hitchhikers in a very short amount of time. I didn’t really need to retrieve my phone since a replacement phone was already on it’s way, but what a cool life story that old phone had.

I’m usually good about making sure my phone is securely zipped into a pocket, so this was a good reminder to pay attention when heading out. And since I’m an outdoorsy kind of person, I will always be out in the woods, but I will certainly make an effort to stay on the trails and not pound my way through the underbrush. For now, I keep feeling like there are ticks walking all over me…and I check each sensation. This too shall pass.