The tick is one creature I look forward to hearing from Jesus Himself, just what it was originally created for! (originally no animals ate or sucked blood from other animals.) None of the excuses you found in the guide books make a lick of sense! The earth would get by better without those creatures because as you said there are other bugs and critters which can be eaten and which are surely better nutrition.

Sometimes I seem like a tick magnet managing to get one or two from a short walk. I usually feel them and find them before they bite, but not always. The safest way to kill them is to sever their head part from the body part. Only then will I flush it down a drain. Burning them can be dangerous, but I like your method.

I've never heard of where they "come from" as told in your frightful experience! Thanks for sharing that bit of info.

The worst ticks I've encountered were while visiting in Arkansas. A short 15 minute walk on a paved road, and carefully avoiding any bushes, yielded at least a dozen ticks crawling up my clothing. None of them found a meal however. It seemed to me that they might have leaped from plants at the side of the road! Maybe I walked over a crowded tick gathering and they climbed up my shoes?

As to your response when you got home, throwing those clothes into the back yard would have made your yard a dangerous place for a very long time! I think I would have stayed away from home and found a private way to remove the critters from clothing so as to not carry them home.

The strangest experience for me was not so scary as yours, but while hanging out near the coast and resting among low coastal plants, I observed a tick making it's way toward me, slowly, like something from a horror movie. It was not engorged, still flat, but was the size of a nickel with a gray almost hairy and wrinkled appearance. It was soon deceased, and I've never seen another of that type.

Thanks for your story!