It was during a quiet, sedate reading session that Burke said the most worrying words: ‘Uh oh.’

As per my training over the last years, my eyes went to the dog sleeping at my feet and my brain went to Donald Trump. With the slightest facial movement I ask Burke what the problem is and if I need to do anything. She answers with words.

“I might have a tick.”

My jaw has found a very comfortable resting position which I am unwilling to disrupt. So I give her the two-muscle facial sign that says ‘ah fucker’.

Indeed, a tick has made home on Burke somewhere I am not at liberty to mention. We call it names while we flush it down the toilet. Within a few minutes, I become one of the apartment building’s leading experts on ticks.  

It was pretty flat and had not been there long because we got him out fast. He had not yet gorged on blood. He had likely not transferred any sickness or illness (knock on wood). But man did that little fucker get to me.

It happened quickly. An hour after Burke found her tick, I found myself scratching and prodding my ass. Then behind my knees. Then under my arms. Then I was in the hallway mirror with a flashlight and a bodily flexibility I haven’t known since my weight started with a 1.

Is there anything better than Memorial Day? The weather’s nice, school’s careening towards a close, and the summer season and all its mosquito-laden, sweat-soaked glory is just getting started. Memorial Day is sort of the Friday afternoon of the summer – all the fun, sunburn, and backyard shindigs are ahead. More importantly, Memorial Day marks the beginning of the outside drinking season.

What would become Memorial Day started out as unofficial gatherings by black southerners to decorate soldiers’ gravesites on Civil War battlefields. After a few such events in the early 1860s, what is considered the first ‘Decoration Day’ took place on May 1 1865, in Charleston, South Carolina. On this day, around 10,000 recently-freed black people held a parade to honor 257 dead Union soldiers, who they buried in proper graves which they decorated with flowers.

Like many holidays, Decoration Day’s original intention was quickly back-seated in lieu of parties and hotdogs. By 1869, complaints were made about the day becoming more about ‘banquets’ and ‘pomp’ than honoring war dead. Any hopes of removing the day’s leisure focus were smashed in 1971 when the Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect. This Act moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May, perennially tying it to a 3-day weekend. A year later, Time Magazine called it a ‘3-day nationwide hootenanny’, which confirms that whoever wrote that had never in their lives had sexual intercourse with another person in the room. 

Oh, I can understand the complaints, and there’s no doubt that we should remember those who have served and those who have died in conflict. But let’s also keep in mind that America is globally notorious for being stingy with holiday time. So let’s forgive Americans for not fully committing to the rather serious intent of a holiday and instead focusing on the small joy of a free Monday. Besides, do 3 billion people only look forward to December 25 because they get to celebrate Christ’s birthday? No. So let’s chill.

In any event, let’s look at Memorial Day for its role in the year: the onset of the outside drinking season. People have technically been drinking outdoors for eons. After all, when our Neanderthal ancestors Og and Moog ingested some fermented fruit and ended up buzzed and jonesing for a cigarette that wouldn’t exist for 58,000 years, they did so outside. But where did deliberate outside drinking begin?  

Like most things boozy, this tradition kicks off with our lushy ancestors in Ancient Rome. From April to October, barely a week passed when the Romans weren’t hogging down wine in a garden or a villa courtyard and making their servants reenact The Aeneid’s saucy parts.