Fourth of July was the worst day of my life.

I know we have been lacking in content over the past few weeks, so I decided that while I take a bit of vacation I'll tell you a story that happened during my actual vacation. 

I decided to visit a friend during the 4th of July Week, she had a break from classes and it lined up in a way that I only had to take off 3 days of work to visit her for 8. I'll talk about my trip overall more during the next Obsidia Podcast, but I do have a specific story I want to talk about here first. 

4th of July means Fireworks, so we went to see some Fireworks. There was live music, food trucks, and a lot of cool stuff going on. We decided that we hate crowds of people and went for a walk on a trail that went through the woods. We didn't really think anything of it, and the walk was nice. We finally met a dead end and decided to turn back. On the way back to the actual paved trail, I stepped on something that seemed to crumble beneath my feet. I paid no attention to it and kept walking. 

We finally found a place to sit and enjoy the Fireworks, just off the trail in the grass. So we sat down and waited. That's when a tick jumped on my arm. I swatted it away and immediately stood up. Another one was on my shirt, so I swatted that one away and backed up a little further. I looked down and realized there were 3 more crawling up my pants leg. I screamed louder than I'm proud to admit. 

I took my shirt off and my friend checked me for more ticks. I didn't have any, so I figured I was okay. I checked her and she was fine, so we went back to the car and planned to finish the fireworks there. That's when it started to get worse. 

I felt a little bite on my leg, so I lifted my pants leg and that's when I saw the most terrifying thing I've ever seen in my life. Dozens of black specs crawling up my leg. I don't think I've ever had a panic attack that badly in my life. There was nothing we could do, we couldn't leave. The police blocked off the only exit and cars were so tightly packed in, so we had to wait while dozens of baby ticks crawled all over my legs. I'm getting itchy just thinking about it, even now. 

When the fireworks were over, which neither of us watched because we were so freaked out, we forced our way out of the park. Needless to say, many middle fingers were pointed in our direction. We raced to the closest Dollar store and bought rubbing Alcohol and Packing Tape. An idea I got off of Quora, by the way. We went straight to the Hotel where I stripped off all of my clothes and went to work rubbing alcohol on my legs and ripping little ticks off of me with tape. I'm surprised I still have any leg hair. 

We checked ourselves for bigger ticks, which we found, and promptly set fire to and quarantined my clothes to a tightly tied garbage bag in the corner. I spent the rest of the night and following morning anxiously checked every inch of my body for moving black specs and even found a couple, but by the next night it seemed like we finally rid ourselves of the worst infestation I've experienced in my short life. 

Luckily her mom's house wasn't too far away and I was able to wash my clothes and kill any remaining demons that resided within them. There we were on the 5th of July, no fireworks, itchy bug bites, and a paranoia that still exists to this day. 

That's the story of one of the most recent traumatic events, and hopefully makes up for the lack of behind the scenes content while I work on putting that together. 

Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far, we really appreciate the support. - Brian