If I somehow manage to slip in through the pearly gates and make it into heaven one day, the first thing I'm going to do is find myself a laptop and send God a meeting maker request. Don't worry, I'll only ask for an hour of His time, though I'm sure I could easily sit and chat with Him all day. Hmmm ... I wonder if there are days in heaven or even hours or minutes for that matter or if maybe the whole entire concept of time doesn't even exist there. Personally, I think that would be like the coolest thing ever ... to never have to watch the clock again for all of eternity. But even if that were the case, I would still be very respectful of God's time ... I mean, seriously, He is the busiest guy in the universe after all. I'm sure you're dying to know why I want to have my hour-long meeting with the Big Guy, and if you're not, too bad because I'm telling you anyway. I have a list of questions I want to ask Him, not the least of which is, "Why in heaven's name did You create chiggers?"
There's one surefire way to make sure something happens to me that I don't want to ever happen to me again and that's to brag about how that particular thing hasn't happened to me in a really long time. Which is exactly what I did a few days ago when I was talking to a friend and I said, "I haven't had a chigger bite in a really, really long time ... I used to get them every time I walked out in the yard." Betcha can't guess how many chigger bites I have now, can you? Don't even waste your time trying to guess, I'll tell you ... 17 ... I have 17 stupid chigger bites. Yep, 17 of those demonic little suckers decided to latch on to my skin and bite the heck out of me. I have bites on my forearms, my back, my legs, my armpits ... I even have a bite on my breast. It's a good thing I sit in the corner at work so no one could see me scratching the heck out of my boob today ... talk about awkward, geez. And just in case you've never had a chigger bite, multiply the worst mosquito bite you've ever had in your entire life by a gazillion and that might come close to how badly they itch.
I'm sure I must have gotten chigger bites when I was a kid ... as much as I played outside, there's just no way I didn't get my fair share of bites. The odd thing is that if I got them, I certainly don't remember getting them, which, considering how badly they itch, you'd think I would. It wasn't until I moved to Kansas that I discovered the full-blown horror that such a microscopic little creature could wreak. Thankfully, Midwestern folk are generally a pretty kind bunch and one of them hooked me up with a little bottle of miracle medicine called Chigarid. I'm not kidding, friends, that stuff is like liquid gold during chigger season ... at least I thought it was up until a couple of years ago when I found out that a dollar bottle of clear fingernail polish works just as well as a six-dollar bottle of Chigarid. Now the makers of Chigarid will tell you that the camphor, menthol, phenol and eucalyptus oil in their product do more to soothe the itch, but the truth is that the key to controlling the itch is sealing the bite from air and clear fingernail polish handles that task just fine.
So why am I writing about chigger bites? Why indeed, friends ... why indeed?
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