die gegen zecken

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Out of all the pests in my area, and there are many, I most dislike ticks.

Yes, sunny  foggy centro-Northern California USA (on the left of the map, ah ha) is overrun with blood-sucking losers hanging out on weed waiting for their next host. And usually I don’t even trip, knowing it’s just a thing- a paradise situation, if that’s what you make it. But then a tick bites you in a sensitive area and it really hurts- it’s a deep muscle ache. BAM! You got 24 hours to pull that sucker out or it’s probable Lyme Disease fo yo ass.

“Say, Dick…yeah, you. Can I axe you a question? How is this relevant to my fast-paced, computer-based, active lifestyle?”, you might be asking yourself. And well you might, because here is how:  MOTHERFUCKERS ARE REVEALING SECRET INFO.

No! No, it’s true. Go ahead and laugh. It’s mostly poorly thought out attempts at electronickal ego boosting viz. the typical LOOK AT MEness of your various social media platforms, but it’s also some adventurtizing corporate buy-now! lookbook type shit where you can imagine yourself in some rad (#savage) setting way back in the woods so you need this season’s exxxtreme shit to look cool while you are doing it. Shit. You prolly need next season’s exxxxtremer shit to look cool. But really, it happens that way.

So, you all (don’t) know me. The (real) computer me. You (don’t) know what I got. I got a magical backyard. It’s more and less magical than some, but it’s what I got, and I treat it accordingly. I love that shit. Loooooooove it. I ride it, and I groom it’s trails, and I drink booze beneath it’s trees, and I pick up litter from it’s dog walkie areas, and I hide beers under it’s logs, and I build secret forts at it’s places. You know, like a tarp for a night, or that most meaningful of secret forts- a 12pack box stuffed behind some bushes. In short, I workout…

As for the motherfuckers, well. Motherfuckers always got something to say. There’s a spot some of us go that’s fairly remote, with a bigness to it that speaks to me of the American West. It just feels nice. And because of it’s remoteness it affords us an outlet- a respite from squares and straights, from can’ts and shouldn’ts. That doesn’t mean (to me anyways) that we fuck shit up, yeehaw. It means (to me anyhow) that we can be a little looser. We can get loaded and stay up late telling stories or looking at the stars. We can get nude and bronze all those hard-to-tan spots. Or, hypothetically, we could carefully manage a modest campfire in an era of fire bans (frankly, warranted, given the current climate). And because this spot is remote, it takes a certain determination and willingness to suffer to reach. Most of your general public (oh! the humanity) are not willing to put themselves out to the extent required. And because the spot is NOT specified (it has no name), and because directions are not posted on the goddamned internet, your typical asshole doesn’t know where it is. And because of the combination of these aspects, it stays nice. It is the embodiment of #outsideisfree.

I have heard the expression that the surest way to ruin a honey hole is to tell someone where it is, and I have come to know that to be true.

There is a spring near this spot, cool and clean, and we’ve hauled out a catch basin to collect the precious drops. Behind that basin, when we can, we leave “extra” beers. Recently, an internet article was posted by a cycling company highlighting this spot as a means to promote their wares. There were pictures and directions. In this article was a mention of their having found and drunk these “extra” beers. And, there was this:  “PROtip: if you didn’t want us to drink them, you should have hidden them better.”

How about that?

Really. Here is a picture of these clowns:

I was informed of these developments by a solidly genuine human being who thusly (and unfortunately) got stuck in the middle of a back and forth about the shittiness of the article’s tone, but mostly the shittiness of “blowing up the spot”. My main point was that in giving the information out so indiscriminately, they were inviting ruin. There are several nearby swimming holes that are full up with broken glass and spray painted rocks because they are well known and accessible to the kind of garbage people who will leave behind dirty diapers and broken coolers full of trash.

The company removed the joke(?) PROtip and left up the pictures and the directions. Being fired up at that point, I looked closely at all the pictures. Let’s imagine they had a campfire in some of the pictures. When along the way there are at minimum four (4) clearly visible signs prohibiting campfires. Leaving aside the stupidity of the spot blow uppery itself, putting images up on the world wide boob tube that revealed technically criminal behavior is mind boggling stupidity. Particularly if one considers that the digital cred of these pictures is not lessened one pixel if the dang locations were just fucking left out. You’re gonna bust your ownself?!? Why invite scrutiny? Lead the wolf right to your door? Get the spot regulated? California is, understandably, really serious about fire safety. The visuals would still have the same purchase-inducing pop if they were presented with no names named. Further communications ensued while the ad remained. Ultimately, figuring the spot to be well and truly blown, I suggested I would push the red button here at DC and have a reveal of my own if they did not pull the whole thing. Brinksmanship. Look it up.

Happily, one or another of these points got through. The adventurtizement was taken off the computer billboard. The company may stay an anonymous example of shit headedness rather than be named/shamed and chased up to the castle fleeing our torches and pitchforks. Thank you, legions of DC villagers.

Now. I didn’t post that video of the yoked western fence lizard (Scleloporus occidentalis) just for the sake of illustrating how GD sweet my muscles are. Around here we call those lizards Blue Bellies, and it is commonly known that they carry an as-yet-unidentified protein in their blood which kills the virus causing Lyme Disease. This is why the incidence of Lyme Disease is so much lower here than on the least coast. (where my Philly at?) The ticks attaching themselves to these well toned forest helpers are also cured of Lyme, and cease to be carriers of the jawn. How neat is that?

It is my sincere hope that this whole poorly written article, full of made up words and bastardizations of even those, will serve as a Blue Belly to all y’all reading this. If you had had any inclinations towards blowing up some spot, you may now recognize those inclinations to be mistaken. It does not serve to direct yahoos to your good places. Show your actual, real-life friends but entreat them to secrecy. Tell no one.

RESPECT. Don’t blow up the spot.

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