As happens nearly every year, not long after finding the first violet of the spring, I found the first tick. It was hanging out on the wall in the foyer. Presumably it had been carried into the house on someone’s shoe. I used a tissue to pluck it off the wall. Then I took it outside, where my husband ground the nasty bloodsucker into the driveway.
A couple of days later I found a little green grasshoppery bug on the rim of a drinking glass in the kitchen. Another interloper! In this case, I took the glass outside and gently transferred the bug from the glass to the grass.
My son, if he had seen what happened to the tick, might have argued that it wasn’t the tick’s fault that it had evolved to suck blood. And I would have had to concede the point. But I am a practical person, and I follow a practical rule for creepy crawlies: if you’re dangerous to me, I’ll be dangerous to you, but if you’re cute and harmless, then I’ll be cute and harmless, too. It’s only fair.