Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Today, I am experiencing, for the first time, the southern and midwestern phenomenon commonly known as chiggers. And it sucks ass! It's a very miserable experience. Chiggers are a mite that climb onto humans and other animals from grassy and woodland areas. They do not technically burrow into your skin but they feed off your skin cells and sit on your skin doing so until you most likely scratch them off. They are almost invisible to the human eye and so often go undetected until the itchy little bumps begin to appear. The worst part about it, though, is that they will stay on your clothing and it can be days before you feel well enough to not scream. I am not to that point. Today, these little bites began to itch, and they itch bad.

And so today I mentioned this to Marilyn while standing in her office talking about garden plans and she said, "I wish I had something to help you with. Oh wait! I do! Windex! No, seriously, it works." Well, these are the things that happen when you hang around Marilyn Elliott long enough. You end up doing crazy things like spraying Windex on your bug bites. Marilyn is obviously the mom of multiple children because she grabbed the bottle, shut her office door and said, "Here, I'll spray you." It took a bit of effort, but I convinced her I could go to the bathroom and do it myself, as chigger bites happen under your clothes and my bites were far enough under my pants to require me to remove them.

Surprisingly, it works. And it works quite well. My Big Fat Greek Wedding was right.

So I am going to bed now. I have done four loads of laundry in order to wash these devil creatures away, but as one last precaution, before I jump into bed, I'll spray a fine mist (or not so fine) of Windex on my skin and hope the itch free feeling will last long enough for me to fall asleep. And I'll hope for a little less misery tomorrow as I study in the student center, but if not, I can always ask Marilyn for the Windex bottle.