I do not get bitten by a tick during our field trip to the wetlands. However, I do get paid back for performing a good deed.
My group is the last at the far pond, the one with the boardwalk extending out about thirty feet with a sitting area. Turns out the sitting area is loaded with hornets -- we are apparently sitting on their nest. We can't just pack up and run; we are, as I said, the last group in this area, so we need to empty the containers, clean out the sieves, and carry the equipment back to base camp at the visitors' center.
The students are excited to show off what they've found: nymphs and isopods and dragon fly larvae and water spiders (one of which semi-escapes) and all kinds of really cool stuff. To expedite the process while the kiddos are presenting their findings, I carefully reintroduce our aquatic insects back into their environment then pile the containers together. I sort and organize because, hey, I used to be a Girl Scout. When it comes time to leave the pond, I volunteer to carry all the containers and utensils.
We have several more stops along the glacial ridge to examine what used to be a river bed thousands of years ago. I put the containers down, pick them up. We move along; I repeat the process. It takes us about thirty minutes to get back up the hill. Near the edge of the field by the visitors' center, our guide asks for the containers, assuring me that I shouldn't be carrying them. I don't want her to get in trouble ... again ... we got yelled at already because I'm so short and the guide is so tall that the program director thought my guide was taking off without a second supervisor ... so I hand off the equipment and escort my kids back to the bus.
While waiting for the bathroom kids to rejoin us, I feel something in my sleeve up near the inside of my elbow. Before I can get the sleeve rolled up, the missing water spider from the containers bites me. Little bastard! I squish the living shit out of it and toss it to the ground. So much for nature.
The bite has a nice pink pin-prick-sized center and swells up around it, but, other than that, I am relatively unscathed. One of the other teachers wants to know if it was a radioactive spider and if I will get special powers. I attempt to climb the wall. Nope. Apparently it really had been a regular old spider.
That's what I get for being helpful: a spider bite and no super-powers. Figures.
