All ye, drop your shorts and bow for Mom, The Official Tick Checker!

Of all the many duties required of mothers, checking for ticks is among the most dreaded and disturbing. But every family needs an official “tick checker” to line the family up, make them strip down naked, and search them carefully but respectfully, legally and tactfully for ticks after every outdoor outing.

When you venture outdoors this summer, you will likely encounter ticks and other potentially harmful parasites. Ticks are a lot like in-laws and some relatives: they may be fine for short visits, but extended stays could endanger your health and wellbeing. That’s where you come in, Mom.

Ticks and the like tend to climb up your legs and ascend to the most vulnerable and intimate of places, secret places only you and your spouse talk about on Valentine’s Day.

To compound this little dilemma, the older some of us get, the chubbier and less flexible we become, and there are more fatty, flabby places an energetic, go-getter tick can find to burrow in, hide under or scurry around, often totally unbeknown and unseen until February 14 or your annual doctor’s visit.

So every family needs an official “tick checker,” someone who can line the family up, make them strip down, and search them carefully but respectfully and tactfully for ticks after every outdoor outing.

For obvious legal reasons, you can’t ask one of the kids to do it, although they may be the perfect height to search some of those “undercarriage” areas, and you certainly don’t want to ask that weird uncle that every family seems to have. You probably shouldn’t ask Aunt Edna, who drinks bad and takes all kinds of pills, because her shaking hands might miss the tick with the tweezers and rip off something important you might need later - like on Valentine’s Day.

You can rule out Granny, because her eyesight is weak and her modest heart can’t stand much nudity these days, and you don’t want to get Grandpa started on how, “back in my day,” we didn’t worry about little things like ticks because they were busy saving the world from Nazi Germany.

And let’s face it; no one wants Old Dad inspecting their backside for ticks, because you know Dad will break out the coon-hunting, night-light head lamp and the BBQ grill tongs to aid in his search-and-destroy mission. Lord help you if he finds one, because then he might run to the shed and get his propane blow torch to burn that sucker off!

So sadly, the honor usually goes to Mom. Despite her protests – “I don’t want to do this! They’re your children, too, you know!” and “Oh, my God, when’s the last time you had a bath!” or “Good Lord, honey, what is that thing growing in there?!” – Mommy must assume the role of official tick checker. Much to her disgust, she is the one who must set aside her bashfulness and her appetite, grab a flashlight and check things out in those little cracks, crevices, and crannies where only a tick, a Mommy or a good doctor dare to explore.

As each family member returns from fun-filled treks in the wilderness, the beach, or the campground, Mom the Official Tick Checker must chase them down and round them all up, kids first, saving the worst — Dad — for last, and inspect a parade of hairy limbs, inner recesses, dangling parts, and rosy derrières, some larger and hairier and rosier than others, some with wrinkles, stretch marks and unidentified furry objects, just to ensure that no one brought home any souvenir arachnids and everyone stays healthy.

With a nod to the old beer commercial, “Oh, Mom, The Official Tick Checker, we salute you!”

“Honey, I think you missed a spot right here behind and under my…”

A version of this article was originally published on Sporting Classics Daily.