AH, SWEET MYSTERY MISERY OF LIFE
My husband is allergic to strawberries. By allergic I mean if he touches the tip of his finger to strawberry yogurt and puts it near his tongue, he swells up like the Michelin man in a red body stocking. He was, however, kind enough to encourage me to put in a few strawberry plants for myself at our new home.
“No reason you can’t enjoy a fresh strawberry,” he said.
I promised never to bring a berry into the house and to keep any paroxysms of joy at a low volume.
I planted just a few berry plants, but the very next spring, a surprising number of strawberries popped out almost overnight. I quietly stepped into the garden and picked the biggest, reddest berry, turned my back to the house, and bit into it.
I had never had food before. I had never been happy before. If this was my last meal, I was okay with that. My friends, we have forgotten what strawberries taste like. We eat big red polystyrene berries. They look right. They may feel right. But they do not explode in your brain screaming, “STRAW-BER-RY!” People talk about the Big O only because they can’t describe the Big S.
“How are the berries?” he asked when I came in.
“Not too bad,” I said. My skin stood still but my subcutaneous parts whirled around, beat out a soft shoe, and shimmied like my sister Judy.
There is a price for such happiness. I hadn’t lived in the country for a long time, so I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten that you can’t see them––they are only 1/150th of an inch long––but when they get together with their buddies, they will put a hurtin’ on you. Can you guess who was marching around on me looking for creases and crevices? Under the elastic? Under the leg bands? Neckbands? In the socks? Reveling in my armpits? Gleeful in my groins? The less likely you are to scratch a spot while waiting in line at Sears, the more likely these little guys are to select it for an infestation.
Did you guess an insect? You are wrong! Chiggers are the larval form of an insect, specifically of the mite. Mites are arachnids, cousins to spiders. I’d much rather have spiders in my pants than chiggers, I can tell you that. If you don’t think so, come sit in my strawberry patch and check back in the next day.
The saliva that chiggers inject is an enzyme––it doesn’t irritate your cells; it dissolves them. The itch this creates caused me to rummage like a madwoman through the basement looking for the wire brush I use to strip paint from old furniture. Scars seemed a small price to pay for relief.
After 6 or 7 years of enjoying strawberries, then spinning in bed like a wind turbine for the next two weeks, I’d had enough. I got out the Round-Up and ended that berry patch. It is a pitiful woman who revels in her triumph over a chigger. A larva. Something that isn’t even something yet.
Hey, Defense Department––think outside the Pentagon. Here’s the most cost-effective weapon ever developed. Drop chiggers on both sides, and war will cease. We will itch our way to détente.
