Chigger Mythology

In New York City, insects and wildlife are limited to cockroaches, the occasional squirrel, rats and Wall Street brokers. Although rats should probably be categorized more as an alien life form than “wildlife” as typically defined.

Over the centuries these few species and the 2 million sub-humans who inhabit the tiny island of Manhattan have come to an agreement. All go about their business trying desperately to pretend the others don’t exist. While the occasional misinformed cockroach may be seen scuttling across the kitchen floor, New Yorkers know not to attempt to attack with something as ineffectual as Raid. Later that night the unharmed cockroach and several of its burly brethren will wake you out of a sound sleep, and ever so subtly threaten you with switchblades.

And that’s nothing compared to what the rats could do.

So my experience with nature, when I landed wide-eyed in Huntsville, AL, was fairly limited. I was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer audacity of the insects that refused to keep out of sight and maintain the “I don’t see you and you don’t see me” philosophy that worked so well for us in New York. Not only do they refuse to keep to the code, they will actually make contact with you in an extremely unpleasant manner.

At first I thought, “Okay, a couple of mosquitoes. I’m not such a wussy city girl that I can’t handle a few bites now and then.” Well, clearly my tolerance was the equivalent of a welcome mat to the little shits because as the summer progressed I started finding them in my home, which is just unacceptable. I discovered that if I neglected to move any object positioned within a few inches of the wall, in less than a week an entire colony of spiders would set up a civilization there. There’d be tiny little spider hardware and grocery stores, maybe a couple of churches. Some of the more literate spiders had a library.

Eventually word got out among the insect world that I was a real push-over, and a tasty Northern delicacy. Last week I was attacked by a veritable army of what I came to learn were “chiggers” when I volunteered, out of the kindness of my heart, and because I wanted to get in for free, at a Botanical Gardens function. Afterwards, I came home to discover my legs and feet covered in little red welts that itched so badly I nearly wept.

The ladies I work with, who have taken the naïve New Yorker under their wing, informed me casually during a meeting in the conference room that my discomfort was thanks to chiggers, which buried under the skin and continued to live off of their host. In other words, those were not bug bites – those were actual bugs, living in my skin.

Words cannot describe my horror. In those first few moments of enlightenment I was torn between crumpling into a sobbing heap and finding a way to claw out of my own body.

The ladies went on with the lesson by explaining that the chiggers needed to be smothered to death. One, a veritable walking Rite-Aid, whipped a bottle of clear nail polish from her bag and instructed me to polish every bump. With the thought of those things living under my skin – oh God I can’t even say it again – anyway, I yanked my pants legs up, right in the middle of the meeting, and gave my chiggers a manicure they wouldn’t forget.

And now comes the part when the naïve little Northern girl educates you Southerners about your pesky little cohorts. After racing home, doing a kind of leap/walk as if trying to shed my skin snake-like, I went online. Turns out it’s all just a myth. Chiggers don’t bury themselves under your skin and live on. In fact, they usually die before they’re even done biting, thanks to our anti-chigger antibodies.

But I want to make it clear: Just because I am relieved to know this it is not an invitation to the remaining chiggers out there. You’re going to have to find some other sucker to torment because the naïve New Yorker has wizened up and bought ten gallons of Bug-Off. This is war.