Last week I praised homegrown tomatoes. On this Southern-Fried Friday, I’m confessing the downside to collecting them from my garden. Chiggers. Those little buggers eat me alive if I step one foot on the ground without packing protection. No, not a weapon, I’m talking heavy-duty bug spray, as in the dead-on-contact stuff. All because I love my garden’s homegrown tomatoes. There should be a law against them, folks. Chiggers, not tomatoes. And once they snack on you, the whelps and itching come near erasing the joy of eating a tomato. Turns out the critters are in the tick and spider family. What a surprise. Even worse, the microscopic babies are the culprits, not the adults.
Now I know Colossians 1:16 says, “For by God all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.” But what purpose drives a chigger’s life? To make me miserable? Let it go, chigger babies, let me go.
The popular novel “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens is on my reading list this year, and the title has inspired me to name my next one “Where the Chiggers Itch” because I’ve declared all out war on the varmints. With the subtitle “Annihilation of a Southern Pest,” it should make the bestsellers list immediately. Is anyone else adored by biting insects? If not, tell me what you think about Delia’s book.