At some point Sunday evening, apparently I walked on a chigger nest, or some sneaky and nefarious relative thereof.
I learned this Monday morning, when I woke up with the outside of my left thigh covered in bites. Over the course of Monday, whenever I’d scratch, another set of bumps would be revealed. As of this morning, my left thigh is basically covered from ass to knee. There’s a few random bites scattered across the rest of my anatomy, usually single nips, from the top of my right foot, next to my belly button, a really galling one on my right buttock, and a few around my right knee, but apparently the left thigh was the bit the bugs really got their little mandibles in.
And I mean REALLY. Like forty or fifty bites. It’s carnage down there.
I’m bathing in itch-relief gel. A trip to wikipedia informs me that the irritation is caused because chigger nymphs aren’t blood suckers, instead they bite a hole in the skin and inject digestive enzymes. It doesn’t start itching until they drop off, apparently, so I’m probably not still coated in wee little parasites, but gawd, the itching…
