Boneyard Short, "The Tick", pg. 1 (Patreon)

     A few weeks back, I felt an itch on my leg and discovered the bite in the attached photo (warning: it's kinda gross). At first I thought it was a spider bite, but after a few days it got worse, so I thought I should do some research. I discovered two things: 1) Spider bites are disgusting to look at, and B) It wasn't a spider bite. The red circle (the classic "target" pattern, as I learned) is indicative of a tick bite...specifically, the bite of a tick carrying Lyme disease (the red circle means the virus is reproducing inside you-- fun fact!). I eventually got to a doctor and was put on antibiotics, so fingers crossed... But while I was going through the whole thing, I wondered how Paris would react to this situation. After all, he's an arachnophobe, and ticks are arachnids. I'm creeped out by parasites in general, so if I'd actually found the tick still attached, would I have freaked out and frantically scratched it off, leaving the head under the skin to deal with? Or would I have been calm and collected and gently removed it safely, with tweezers? I really don't know, but I know which is funnier...