Completely Non-Farmish Rambling, Part 1

Dante obviously never had a chigger bite otherwise he would have most certainly had a giant chigger guarding one of the Circles of Hell.

I currently have one (a chigger bite, not a copy of "Inferno") located between my pinky toe and second to last toe.  It is absolute hell.  Really.  I've considered everything from dousing it with napalm to lopping my toe off with my pruning shears.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to provide to some information and clear up some overly-popular misconceptions about chiggers and their bites.

1) The scientific term for a chigger is Trombiculidae.  They are a teeny-tiny (that's a technical term also, btw) mite that is found throughout the world in temperate regions and in the US are found mostly in the south, southeast and Midwest.

2) The chigger goes through four stages in it's life cycle; egg, larva, nymph and adult.  The larval stage is the one we're most concerned about and which we totally and undeniably despise with every ounce of our being.  The larva live in low, damp vegetation like your lawn, then find a tasty piece of your flesh (usually in the cracks between your digits or around tight-fitting clothing like your socks or the elastic around your skivvies, damn them), inject digestive enzymes into their chosen dining area, then digest the liquid goo that was once a piece of your skin.

Now here is the most important part, and the part that I oh so badly want to print up on a bunch of pamphlets and give to the spouters of Chigger-Mis-Information:

When you start to itch from a chigger bite, the chigger is most likely already GONE.  Being satisfied and moved on to become a nymph, scratched off by your fingernails or otherwise just up and left.  The chigger did NOT bury itself into your flesh.  It did NOT lay eggs under your skin.  That little red dot is not an egg, but a scar from the little drinking cup the chigger had made of your flesh.

Painting red nail polish over the chigger bit will not kill it as it is already long gone and on it's way to producing more bastardchiggers. Why red nail polish?  I have no idea, but I've heard people here swear that it has to be red.  Can you imagine somebody painting red nail polish all over their bodies?

Taking a bath in a solution of Clorox bleach will not kill the chiggers.  Because as I've mentioned above, when you start itching, the chiggers are more than likely gone already.  And exactly how much Clorox (yes, I've been told it has to be Clorox, none of that cheap Walmart bleach) does one dump into their bathwater?  And more importantly, wouldn't one be really, really concerned about submerging one's bare-neekid body with obviously tender and delicate parts into a vat filled with questionable amounts of sodium hypochlorite?

Now that I've ripped on the whole bleach "remedy", I will say this.  Yes, I've dabbed bleach on one or two of them.  And the only thing it does is replace the itching with a "holyshitthatburns" feeling.  For a short while.  Then you're back to the itching.

There are products out there that claim to relieve the hell-that-is-a-chigger-bite, this being one of them:

Liar.  Bit, fat, stinky liar.

And I even have that exact jar in our medicine cabinet.  But only to give to my friends visiting from the city just so they shut up about it.  Because in my opinion, nothing releives a chigger bite.

So there, my dear readers, is the honest-to-goodness truth about Chiggers.

You're welcome.