Surprise!

A tick bit me on my foot. It was hiding in my shoe. It was a black tick in a black shoe so its camouflage was perfect. When I kicked off my shoe, there was a black dot on my foot and, when I brushed off the black dot, vigorously brushing it off because it was hanging on pretty tight, the tick found its legs and ran away on the weathered wood of our deck. I hit it with my shoe. Its legs still moved. I hit it again and again and each time it righted itself to scramble away and then I took the toe of my shoe and ground it into the tick and the wood until its body was as flat as a tiny piece of paper but still, one leg waved in the air.

I reflected on this incident – the tick and its flailing legs – and pondered its utility as a metaphor. Was there deeper meaning in, first, the tick hiding in my shoe, waiting so patiently to do me harm, and second, in refusing to die despite repeated beatings with my shoe?

In other times, I might admire the tick’s tenacity. After all, I’ve been the target of some mean shoes and survived. Could the tick represent resilience in the face of adversity?

I dismiss this thought. I eschew it, eschew being one of my favorite words so rarely appropriate for use in casual conversation.

Could the tick represent intractable problems, say, problems you thought you’d solved or had a part in solving but which find a way to keep a leg waving in the air despite the righteous smashing by one’s shoe?

This has the chance of ringing true.

Or maybe the tick is the trick. You know, you wake up, you take a shower, you get dressed, you put on your comfy shoes so you can go outside and play, you think you’re entitled to a life without worry, to skating to the finish line on ice like glass, and then a tick shows up to be a metaphor in your otherwise perfect life.