An irritating situation is arriving soon

Clayton Hayes is a lifelong resident of Dyer County.

In today’s fast-paced world, it’s difficult for writers to continually come up with subjects that interest their readers.

So, I look and listen for exciting topics that have broad appeal.

About once a month, I stop at my favorite fast-food drive-in and order a greasy cheeseburger from my friend Wally. He generally comments on my op-ed column in the previous issue of our State Gazette and wants to know how I get my subject matter.

“What you want me to write about sometime, Wally?” This was my question to him last week.

After placing my $9.00 in his cash drawer, he slowly raised his head and said, “Chiggers!”

His request sure captured my attention.

“Chiggers?” was the only answer I could utter.

“Yep, chiggers. I’ve never seen anyone write about chiggers.”

Now folks, at this point, my thinking was something like this, did Wally have a bad case of chiggers making a home on his body, or did he think a column about these pesky critters would be of interest to my readers?

So, readers, thanks to Wally, you’re getting a column full of chigger information.

Only Southerners know what about chiggers. Brilliant folks refer to them by their formal name, trombicula alfreddugesi. Still think I’ll still just call’em chiggers.

Their minute size can cause a lot of pain, suffering, scratching, and embarrassment, especially when they take a position in those unmentionable places on our bodies. Maybe this was why Wally asked me to write about chiggers?

We all know we get chiggers from tall grass, woodlands, and golf courses. They are most numerous in early summer when grass, weeds, and other vegetation are heaviest.

Chiggers don’t burrow into or under the skin but insert their mouth parts in a skin pore or hair follicle. In other words, they’re poking around where they don’t belong.

After that insertion by Charlie Chigger, small, reddish welts appear on our skin, accompanied by intense itching that results in intense scratching. I wonder if Wally was suffering this reaction.

Did you ever wonder why they prefer areas on our bodies where our clothing is tight against the skin, such as the belt line, waistline, and under socks, or where flesh is thin, tender, or wrinkled, such as ankles, armpits, the back of the knees, and their favorite spot, the groin area?

Once on our body, chiggers wander around for about an hour or more, looking for a tender spot to bite. If they reach an obstacle, such as the belt line, rather than cross the obstacle, they stop and begin to feed.

Since Charlie Chigger doesn’t burrow into our skin or suck blood, he pierces our skin, it injects a salivary secretion containing powerful digestive enzymes that break down skin cells. Then, this injected fluid causes surrounding areas to harden, forming a straw-like feeding tube of hardened flesh from which further, partially-digested skin cells will be sucked out.

After this larva has received a full meal, it drops from our body, leaving that famous red welt with a white, hard central area on our skin that causes us to itch, scratch, cry, yell, complain, and ask, “Why me, Lord?”

Now that the formal education is over, let’s look at remedies. This will be of interest to Wally.

The one we all hear the most is to dab nail polish or polish remover on the welt. This doesn’t work, These products contain benzene, and it’ll enter our bloodstream and maybe cause cancer, which is a lot worse than chiggers.

Most folks think this smothers Charlie Chigger, and he will die a slow, agonizing death. The only

benefit to brushing on a thick coat of nail polish is that it helps to remind us not to scratch the red bite.

Remember, Charlie is not under our skin. It has bitten us, and he has moved on. We must treat the bite, not the chigger. That little white area in the middle of the red welt is not Charlie.

Don’t waste your money on that over-the-counter Chigger Rid that you’ll pay big bucks for at the drugstore. I read the label, and it told me to apply as much as I wanted to. That tells me it doesn’t work.

Try placing a piece of Scotch tape over the bite area. It works. Other remedies have us to apply a mixture of olive oil and white vinegar. Topical Cortisone is helpful. Ask your doctor for some Permethrin. Don’t drink it, rub it on!

Mix witch hazel and sulfurzyme powder into a paste and rub on the red area.

Try muscle rub products such as Ben-Gay ointment. Place some bleach on a cotton swab and touch the affected area. Make a paste from meat tenderizer and place it on Charlie.

According to my sources, these seem to work the best from the home remedies pages. I haven’t experienced the ill effects of Charlie Chigger in several years. Therefore, I can’t report the results of these suggested remedies.

I just had a flash! Since Preparation-H helps shrink certain parts of our body, I wonder if it would work on chigger bites?

The next time I order that greasy cheeseburger from Wally, I’ll ask him if he tried that method.