June 25, 2022 • 32 mins
Chiggers are tiny little mites capable of making your life miserable. Worse than mosquitoes? Maybe. But they aren't insects - mites are actually part of the arachnid family and behave a little like ticks. Learn all about these nearly invisible pests in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
How d everybody, it's may or at least that's the
date of this Selects episode. I picked this one out
Chiggers colon the Phantom Menace because boy, Chiggers are terrible
and they make you itch. And I would say that
listening to this episode will make you itch. So that's
(00:21):
my goal on this Saturday, to make everybody itch. I'm
really sorry, but here we go with Jiggers Hold the
Phantom Menace. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:44):
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there,
so you should know Jerry's head Chiggers. Yeah, me too,
I have not. I'm really glad I was like Chigger.
It seems like Tracy is making a pretty big deal
out of the in this article. Yeah. Tracy Wilson of
Stuff You Miss in History Class wrote this, who recently
(01:04):
got married? Congratulations Tracy? Yeah. And she wrote if you've
ever heard her say the word mouth parts in the show,
Tracy wrote it, chances heart she wrote it. She wrote
ticks and mosquitoes. H did you write bees? She did
a whole insect? Sweet? She spent a lot of time
knee deep in insects. Yeah, and this, well, this isn't
(01:25):
even an insect spoiler. Oh, you just removed the fact
of the podcast. You think I think. So, I don't
think you did. I'm just teasing. Okay, I'll bet I
know what you think it is because I think the
same thing. All right, Well we'll see. Okay, I challenge you.
I challenge you back. We throw down the gauntlet, which
(01:45):
is glove. So Tracy did make a big deal out
of checkers, but apparently it's a big deal, right well,
sure like if you ever had them, they're no fun.
No the deeper I got into the article the where
I was like, oh, yeah, this does sound really kind
of off. Yeah, and it's uh, this is just one everyone,
there's another itch inducing episode. And speaking of I got
(02:07):
my first little bow to poison ivy. Congratulations. Yeah. I
was clearing out stuff over the weekend and I was
in poison ivy and I knew it. I was like,
you know, I've never had it before. This sounds very
familiar and um, but I was still I'm no dummy.
I know how Murphy's law works. So I said, I
(02:27):
just said that out loud. Well, you just said that
out loud, or you just said I said, I'm not
allergic to I thought you were saying like that. I'm
no dummy. I said that too. Um, And I said,
so you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna be careful
and I'm gonna go take a shower pretty soon afterwards. Um.
And so it's not bad. But there are probably five
(02:48):
or six little, tiny little sets of bumps on each
leg pustules. Yeah, they're not bad though. And I looked
at him and said, you know what, that's freaking poison
ivy after all these years, finally got you. Yep, but
not too bad. Like my dad always said, poison I
will gets everybody one day. That his big saying. Uh So, anyway,
(03:10):
speaking of itching, that's my itch story of the day.
And this will make you itch because it made me
itch while reading it. I think you're right. So um,
it's actually it's funny. It didn't make me itch, maybe
because I've never had it. You're scratching yourself, right, I'm
pointing to myself in a weird place. I'm pointing my
finger to my skin and moving it around. But I'm
(03:30):
not scratching curiously. So, Um, everybody knows that chiggers are
insects that burrow into your skin and suck your blood. Um,
And I'm sorry you're being coy, my friend, I am
because you just lied three times. Burrow and oh, insects
that burrow in your skin, that suck your blood. That's right,
(03:52):
those are there's three lies in there. This is like
a highlights We have to go pick out what's wrong
with this picture. Chiggers are not insects. They are arachnets.
They are the larvae of the harvest mite. They do
not burrow into your skin and suck your blood. But
they're still what are the bumps? Well, you're being coy again,
(04:12):
but what they are actually doing is maybe even grosser
than sucking your blood. They are liquefying your cells into
a slurry that they can drink from a straw made
of your body. It's pretty Is that the fact for you? Yeah? Alright,
but we'll get there. Were the same one first one,
(04:33):
first of one. The first time we've ever high fives
in an episode? Is that right? Sure? I I would
have imagined that you could make like a video montage
of us like high fiving during episodes. I guess not. No,
so you said that, Um, these things are the larva
of harvest mites, right, and harvest harvest mites are arachnids.
They're related to spiders, so they're not insects. But you
(04:56):
can understand why people would think that um chiggers are
or our insects because chiggers have chiggers. The larva of
the harvest might have six legs, so you'd be like, well,
it's an insect. No, they haven't grown their adult legs yet. Apparently, Yeah,
I guess they get those two more legs at some point. Um,
they the adults are red and the little um larvae
(05:19):
are red. But um, you're not gonna see. That's one
of the problems with chiggers is you're not gonna see
like a mosquito landing on you or a flea, even
like you think a flea is small, a chigger is
like a tiny little dot that you will would never
notice and you may not even be able to see
at all with your eyeballs. All right, but sometimes you
(05:39):
can see several of them together basically forming a clump.
Yeah party together, yeah with one of them has Kid
from Kid and plays haircut or Aman Schumpert's more contemporaneously.
Oh yeah, that is a total kid and play haircut.
Did you know that Amman Schumpert delivered his own child
in his apartment purpose accidentally. The kid just came very
(06:02):
quickly and like he the nine one one dispatch had
to talk him through how to do it. But he
delivered his own child and his wife or girlfriend right
there and there and everything was good, totally great. Wow,
that's great news. He's a basketball player, by the way, people,
Oh yeah, people are, who's amunch Shopper. He plays for
the boom, for the calves Boom. So if you're an
(06:24):
adult harvest mite and you've grown up from a sugar
into an adult, you're gonna eat. It's actually a beneficial
little arachneed to have around because they're gonna eat the
eggs of other pests like mosquitoes, right, so you want
the adults around as an adult or um as the
second step the nymphs right after the larva. It's the
larva that suck. They don't suck, well, yeah, but the larva.
(06:49):
You know, you gotta have them, but you know, hopefully
they just stay in the yard. Although these things are
holy terrors to see if you are on their scale, Like,
if that thing's coming after you and your eggs, I'll
bet it's just really terrifying. They are parasitic though, Um,
they don't. The larva are. Yeah, they don't eat the
(07:12):
blood though, like we pointed out, like the fleas and
the ticks and the mosquitoes. No, they eat your skin cells. Right,
So here's what happens. Larva hatch um. Apparently an adult
female harvest might will go into the dirt and be like,
there's a bunch of eggs, champert is there to an
(07:33):
for them to hatch, so we can hasten their birth um,
And then the eggs do hatch and the harvest might
female tends to layer eggs all in one place. So,
if you are familiar with chiggers, if you've ever had
them in your yard, like one little patch of grass
can be totally overrun with chiggers, but then you just
turn a few degrees to your left, there's another patch
(07:55):
of grass that is totally devoid of them. Yeah. I
get the feeling. They don't get around too quickly either.
You know, they know they're pretty stupid low level animals
if you ask me. So, the eggs are laid in
one place, they hatch and the little larva come out
and they're like, blood meal, Give me a blood meal
that's not actually made of blood. That's basically what they say. Okay, Uh.
(08:20):
They hatch pretty much anytime during the year except for
the hard winters, and um, like you said, they want
that first meal. And the reason they want that first
meal is not just because they're ravenous little jerks. Um.
They actually cannot progress to that nimph stage, which and
then grow up to be adults unless they have a
complete first meal. They can have, they can have half
(08:43):
a first meal, they have three quarters and get and
get scratched off the body or brushed off the body,
and that's pretty much it. They generally will not go
back and finish that meal, so there's no starting over.
They're just like, well that's it. That's the end of millhouse,
my one chance and um. So it's like a complete
(09:04):
lose lose situation when a chigger bites a person, because
once you start itching as a person, you go to
scratch the area and there goes the chigger. They don't
latch onto your skin, they don't burrow into your skin,
so the moment your your finger makes contact with them,
they're gone. Um the well they leave behind is there
and persists for a while, but they didn't finish their
(09:26):
their meal and they die. But you still get the
scratch or the horrible itch. It's lose loose. They need
to stay away from humans. Well they do because there
are a lot of animals that don't mind the chigger
on their body, so they can get their full meal
deal there and go on to live a great and
healthy life without getting scratched off. So, um, they don't.
(09:48):
They don't want to be on a human And I
mean you would think like how long does could their
meal possibly last? We're talking like buffet level length of time? Uh,
four days, four days to four days, I think about it.
That's time for us. Like how long is four days
to a harvest? Might larva? You could probably do the math.
(10:13):
It's like seven eight days. Figure out chigger years or
probably it's probably most of their life. Yeah, you know. So, Um,
there's a bunch of different kinds of chiggers around the world. Um,
and they're actually I mean they are pests, they are parasites.
But um, there's only like at least one as far
as this article says that is really problematic for humans.
(10:37):
The lepo Trobidium deliens nice might. It's common to Asian
and it can carry typhus, a form of typhus which
can kill you if it's untreated. Yeah, it's cured with
antibotics pretty easily. But um, if you're out in the
middle of nowhere, it can kill you. But don't worry
unless you um or in certain parts of Asia. Not
(10:58):
a problem, right, chigger, We'll just annoy you. Yeah, that's it.
They're basically just a total annoyance. And by annoying humans,
they die. It's stupid. All right, Well, let's take a
little break here and we will come back and talk
about some of the wonders of the jigger. All right,
(11:36):
we've covered Do we cover fleas? Yeah? I want to
say yes, they definitely need a blood meal. We've covered fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, spiders, scabies.
Did we Oh? Yeah? Man, I just it's really getting
a little too much to try and remember now. Yeah,
you know, I mean there's like lost episodes just because
(11:58):
we forgot them. It's officially especially getting out of hand.
I guess we should stop. No, we keep going, my friend,
um brain heart, so bad chuck. Alright, So what I
was talking about was the wonders of the chigger. They
have a lot of little things that they have about
them that make it um and make them able to
perform this uh surgery on your skin. Well put, it
(12:23):
is kind of like surgery. It is um. But again
they aren't latching on. They're just kind of hanging around.
And when you get a chigger on your skin, it
actually will spend usually hours looking for a good place
to go try to get a meal because, um, they
have these little tiny mouth parts. There's the word that
makes the appearance which lets you know it's a Tracy
(12:45):
Wilson joint. Right. Um, but they don't pure skin very easily,
at least not human skin. Uh, tough skin that you
would find most on most places of your body. Chigger
can't bite through. But which is why you will get
chigger bites in play. Is like the back of your knee,
like in your armpit, places where the chigger can can
(13:05):
get its mouth parts. What are they called celisera celiserai
clisserai clissari clisser I explains it all, Um, that's why
you'll get those bites in those areas because that's where
they can get their clisser I into. That's right. They're
light sensitive, which means they're gonna hang out in the
shade mostly if it was up to them at least
(13:28):
um it's uh, the sun is gonna dry out their body,
so that's why they head towards the shade. I mean
you can like kill them basically. Uh. And so also
when a host um comes near, there's like your dog
casting a shadow, the chiggers go, we'll over there. I
think that's pretty clever. There's a shadow. Let's that means
something is alive with skin. That means that, in some
(13:51):
weird way, chiggers are aware of shadows. That's right. I mean,
like some dogs aren't aware of shadows or don't understand them.
I think probably most dogs. Have you ever seen that?
Like baby two three year old toddler um who sees
her shadow for the first time. He just starts f
freaking out trying to get away from it. It's really
(14:11):
really cute. So it was a possessed baby kind of.
That's sad, it's cute. I saw that movie that was
The Exorcist. That's what I'm talking about. Uh. They are
very temperature sensitive. As well. So when they coming to
contact with a host, and the host is the thing
that it's gonna feed on. Um, it's gonna detect that
(14:33):
has like you know, it's not infra red, but it's
gonna detect that body heat, right and say, all right,
there's something I can try and latch onto. So it's
like predator in that respect. Yeah, a little bit kind
of No dreadlocks, No, those are those are a nice edition.
If you ask me what else, Um, I think it's hilarious.
Tracy called it upward mobility. They like to climb to
(14:56):
the tops of stuff. And I remember this one from Ticks.
Remember that the ticks were just like grasp things, like
little tiny lobsters, just stand there and wait for something
to pass by, and as it does, they grab it. Um.
They don't stand there with their arms outstretched the whole time.
Now that's a stress position. Um. There's something called the
questing response, which is another hilarious term. They're questing. Yeah,
(15:20):
they get up on their tippy toes. They're they're standing
up with their their arms raised up towards the heavens. Yeah,
imagine for a meal of human cell imagine John Cusack
can say anything but take away the boombox, right, that's
a questing position. Yeah, the chickers are there in their
little overcoat and their spiky hair and their bad attitudes. Um,
(15:42):
I just saw you know John Roderick, a friend of
the show, John Roderick, Yeah, great Seattle musician. He tweeted
the other day about silverfish, you know, the little insects.
He said, why don't we call silverfish what they were
clearly meant to be called? Sink lobsters. It really struck
me as funny. They don't look fishy at all. Still,
ver sure, sink clapster. That's a great one. Right. And finally,
(16:06):
they are touch sensitive. They have these little hair like
sensory organs on their body to help basically to help
them find everything from hosts to each other. There. Yeah,
you know they're like, let's get together and really do
some damage on this guy's arn't pit. Yeah, or you
see that waist band. It's a great place to hide
Underpant's band. Yeah, Underpant's band. Yeah what is said in here? No,
(16:31):
that's what I said. Uh, but that is a great
place to hide because, like we said a few times,
you'll easily scratch them off. So they want to go
somewhere where you may not be thinking about scratching. Yeah,
I was surprised that they go. I could see kind
of the outside of the armpit, back of the knee,
the waist band, underpant's band. Um, they're protected there, they are,
(16:52):
but at the same time, it's warm there and their
temperature sensitive. So you sure who think since they're seeking shade,
they would go to a cooler spot. But there's probably
not too many cool spots on the human body that
are protected. Not really, I just said a bunch of
contradictory stuff. So all these things help the chiggers find
their host. But as Tracy points out, that's that's half
(17:15):
the battle. Yeah, and when you find a chigger on you,
it's probably sorry that it chose you as it's one
four day meal. Because they don't like humans, they'll they'll
climb onto anything just about any vertebrate animal, snakes, turtles, birds,
for little birds, chipmunks. They don't like us because we
(17:37):
take hot showers every day, that's right, And a lot
of these animals don't have any kind of response to
being bitten by a chigger, So the likelihood of the
chigger being undisturbed for four days while it's having its meal.
Fourth meal is what we're gonna call it, Like taco bell.
Do you remember that they try to invent another meal. Um,
(18:00):
they're they're so they're not gonna get brushed off on
these things. Humans almost invariably brush chiggers off because right
when we start scratching again, it removes the chigger. Um,
So they're there. They don't seek us out as prey.
It's just it's just total happenstance. Yeah. And like you said,
since they need that thin skin, um, little kids are
more likely to get bitten by a chigger than an old,
(18:23):
leathery old sea captain. Let's say. Yeah, and little kids
who can't take being teased really are vulnerable to chigger
buttons because they're thin skin, very nice. You know, the
ones who were like shorts with knee socks pull all
the way up here. Those kids, Yeah, and their all
their nose are always running because they're crying. They just
stopped crying, those kind of kids. Uh. So, like I said,
(18:47):
a hot shower, uh is a is a great way
to kill. It's it's great for a lot of reasons.
A great way to kill chiggers. It's a great way
to keep your body clean. It's a great way to
unwind at the end of a long day working in
the yard, because that's where you're gonna get your chicker
bites most likely. Yeah, and the yard, Yeah, especially if
you are the type of gets like letters from the
(19:09):
neighborhood association saying mow your lawn you might have chickers.
I will never live where there is a neighborhood association.
No way, no way. Now, you know, in some place,
because it's not my thing. In some places, a neighborhood
covenant supersedes local law. Yeah, unbelievable. Like your mailbox has
(19:32):
got to be like this. You can't paint your house
that color, not not for me, and you gotta pay
us a certain amount of money to boss you around
every month. Nope, yep, that's why I have a stack
of car batteries aside my house with like old wood
that I haven't used still in it's like Sandford and
sun out there, and then like and paint with a brush.
(19:57):
It says, welcome children on beside your Alright, So, uh,
should we take another break and talk a little bit
more about the weird fact of the day. Yes, all right, buddy,
(20:33):
we talked about the mouth parts. So what they do
is they get that calissar i and they make a
hole in your skin normal enough, They inject saliva, which
contains digestive enzymes that make a slurry of your skin cells.
We talked about other insects that do similar things like this,
so it's still pretty like, all right, no big deal.
(20:55):
Then it gets weird. It does. And I don't know
if it's because they have specific enzymes or something, but
I didn't see this happening with anything else, did you know?
But no, you drop it on him, you refuse, all right.
So what happens is they have in these secretions. What
happens is they break your They break your skin cells down,
(21:16):
which makes that slurry, which is good, slurp it up.
But then the surrounding tissue hardens and it actually creates
a tube, a little hard straw in your skin in
the wound. Yeah, called a style of stme. What do
they do with that? They drink out of it. They
use a straw to slurp up your wrecked cells. Yeah,
(21:40):
And the longer they're in there, the longer the straw
is the style of dome the style of dome. Yeah.
I saw a paper from two thousand four and in
the abstract that said it's something like it seems that
style iss domes form as a reaction to chiggers. So
I don't know if they thought like maybe this was
part of a chigger or something like that, but I
guess it's a recent finding that that stylist domes form
(22:04):
and that's how chiggers actually eat because they don't have
any probiscus or anything like that. They're pretty much really
weak proboscis one of those. Um, they're just not great
insects or arachnets at all. Yeah, they're not. They can't
bite very easily, they can't suck anything out. They um,
(22:25):
they're just they're useless. But your body just happens to
help them out. Well, they have that that magic juice,
I guess, so that's pretty cool, you know. Yeah, uh
so with that magic juice, that's gonna be one of
the two reasons you're gonna be itching a lot. Some
people react quite adversely to that juice. Other people it's
(22:45):
not that bad, um, but it's still going to itch
no matter what. And it's not just the juice. You're
reacting to. I think that's probably what first gets your attention.
But the thing that causes the persistent itch is that
stylist dome your body's own reaction, which seems to be
forming basically a hollow tube of temporary scar tissue in
this wound area, and then that actually causes some sort
(23:08):
of itch reaction as your skin heels, and that can
take a very long time to heal. This is the
point where I was like, oh, having chiggers actually does
suck terribly. Yeah. I think if you had a chigger
that was able to complete its full four day meal,
your toast means you haven't showered for four days. Yeah. Uh,
(23:29):
that's when your style of stomb is going to be
at its peak of hardness and length, right, and it's
gonna have the worst reaction, right, So what can you do? Uh?
There are home remedies you've heard, maybe like painting over
chigger bites with a clear nail polish, right, or any
kind of nail polish. Really, I think, well, yeah, sure,
(23:51):
if you got flair, some sparkly gold, I'll get to
put some dots on my armpit, and then why not,
I'll put them around my eye as well. So what's
the deal there. You're just choking it out. Um. A
lot of people would say, yes, you're covering up this
the chigger that's burrowed into your skin and it is
now suffocating to death. It's like choke on, choke on
(24:13):
your meal. But that's wrong because again, chiggers don't burrow
into your skin, right, and Tracy points out very acutely,
by the time you even notice it, it's very likely
the chigger is not there any longer. Right, So if
you're painting something over your skin, um, really, what you're
doing is protecting the wound area from um, the air
contact with the air, which can aggravate it. So it
(24:34):
does help. But Tracy says, just use anti itch cream.
It's way better. Yeah, like cortisone or something. So what
it is? Yeah, yeah, Um, don't try to I don't
know why she felt the need to put this in here,
but we might as well say it. Don't try to
remove the style of dome. I can see people doing that,
trying to dig it out. Yeah, no, you don't need
(24:55):
to know. I can definitely see people doing that. I
think that was worth it. Um. She also says, don't
use turpentine you, I've never heard that. Yeah, people do
all sorts of dumb stuff. Yeah, I mean, I guess
if you could soak in a tub of gasoline and
that would probably kill it. Lighted on fire problems. Yeah,
most of these home remedies odd you should just shy
(25:16):
away from. I think, yes, only use remedies approved by
modern Western medicine. Modern Western medicine. It's the only treatment
you need. Um, the name chigger, they believe you ever
heard of sand fleas huh, like in Florida or anywhere? Yeah,
these those are chico fleas c h I G O
(25:39):
e um. And another name for that is the jigger flee.
And they think that chigger came from just sort of
mashing those two names together, even though it's not the
same thing. No, it's not. Those actually do burrow into
your skin and they lay eggs there, and then the
eggs like to feast on you. So not good. But
I guess there's just nothing but confusion surrounding chiggers. Yeah, nothing,
(26:00):
so chuck. If you want to protect yourself against sugar
invasions in your armpits and your underpants bands, what do
you do well? If you're working? If you work in
your yard and your garden a lot. Um you wear
long sleeves, wear pants to you know, cover up as
much body as you can physically. Um, you can wear
(26:22):
deet if you want, or any other kind of insect repellent.
This says you can also use sulfur. I've never heard
of that. I haven't either. I wonder if you, like,
you just burned incense near you or something. I don't know.
It would smell like bathing egg water. Yeah, oh god,
your bathe in like you know what? Just I will
never ever try because I hate pickled things anyway. But
(26:43):
pickled eggs they're they're not bad. They're usually a little
too sweet. Uh. There's see those things floating in a
jar and it's like I feel like I'm in a hospital,
the like where you found the head. Yeah, the the
I think it's the Chinese, probably Japanese and Korean too.
There's a type of pickled legs where they soak them
(27:04):
in a brine like and it's the saltiest thing you
will ever eat, and they're mucky and brown. Those are
those are not good. The other ones are fine. They're
just not they don't taste that great. I think I
don't want food soaked in liquid. I think pickled stuff
is really good for you. I mean, I hate pickled things,
(27:24):
but just love pickled every period. Like soaking something in
a solution, I just don't want. I don't even like marinades.
I'm a dry rub guy. Are you really? Yeah? You
know I didn't know that about you. Yeah? Yeah, you know,
like sauces of any kind or is it the pre soaking,
like pre cooking, soaking that well, pre marinating, I don't like.
(27:47):
I mean, if you're if you have a quality French
saucier at your disposal, I'll take a little, alright, but
put it on the side in a plastic cup. But
I don't. I don't like. There was this place near
Emily Shop that was it's now closed. I kind of
feel bad for saying this, but I think I know why.
Because they used too much sauce. Dude. They had this
delicious crispy, crispy fried chicken that they dumped this gravy
(28:10):
sauce on top. They never just put it on the side, No,
and by the time it got to the table, it
wasn't crispy fried chicken anymore. I just don't get it, huh.
But yeah, I'll I'll eat a sauce if it's yeah,
what you're describing as smothered chicken, that's totally different. But
it was fried. Huh, fried and smother can't do that.
Those two things are never supposed to come together. Um,
(28:33):
if you want to see if you have chiggers on
your property, um, Tracy says, you can take a piece
of black paper, black construction paper, maybe from your child, right,
give me that, stupid kid, and go out and lay
it on the ground, uh, near where you think there
might be chiggers, and you might see little tiny, tiny
(28:54):
red things. She doesn't just say that. She says to
take a piece of paper and defy physics by standing
it up on its edge. Is that what she says?
And then the chiggers will follow their natural urges and
climb to the top of the paper. Like what world
does Tracy living? Well? And I mean you're you know,
you're in the grass. You can stand a piece of
paper up in the grass. Maybe, yeah, not if you
(29:14):
take care of your grass. This isn't like that Twilight
Zone episode where Darren from the Which like flips the
coin and it lands on its side. Oh man, you
know what happened in Pe in college. One time my
pe teacher basketball teacher threw a pen, remember the paper
mate pens that had the the cap with the just
(29:36):
sort of flat top. Yes, he just flipped it up
in the air, meant to catch it, didn't. It hit
the ground, bounce and landed completely straight up and down
on its cap. That's exactly like that Twilight Zone episode.
He could hear everyone's thoughts after that point. Now, well
I dropped that class immediately. That's smart. Come out of here,
very smart. Where you like which ran out the door
(29:56):
and you're doing Satan's work? Oh man, all right, well
that's chiggers. Oh we didn't say if you really want
to control chiggers in your yard, just take care of
your yard. They will go away. They won't want to
hang out there. Yeah, there won't be long stalks of
grass for them to climb up to. In quest from
that's right. Uh. If you want to know more about chiggers, horrible,
(30:18):
horrible little things, you can type that word into the
search bar how stuff works dot com. And since I
said search bar, it's time for a listener. Hey guys,
I'm a new fan. I must admit I'm getting addicted.
Recently listened to the Anesthesia podcast, and I heard the
listener mail the Harvard student and needed five numbing injections
to the nasal cavity to breaking her nose. She thinks
(30:42):
she can win up it here. It's not bad. I know.
I'm sorry. Uh. In one in college, one of my
molars became infected. I need a root canal. The day
of the procedure that Dennis gave me shots in the gum,
which Chuck said was the worst thing ever in life.
After a few numbing shots, he got to work drilling
uh into the infected tooth. Unfortunately he didn't give me enough.
Once he got down to the root, I felt it
(31:04):
and it felt awful, so I said to the dentist, Hey,
I learned the dentist. He then pulled out what must
have been the largest needle in existence and gave me
a shot directly into the infected root of my school.
Oh man, I think that has the nose beat O. Uh.
This made me. She said that she takes pain well,
she said, but this made me sob uncontrollably. It was
(31:25):
ten years ago, and I can still vividly recall the
flash of blinding pain when the needle made contact. To
make matters worse. That evening, my gum swelled dislodged the
temporary crown. I had to go back the next day
to have it refitted. So that's my injection story. Like
I said, I'm not sure if it's worse than the
five in the nose. I'd say both were pretty terrible.
I hope you enjoyed the read Julie yeaste from Honno
(31:47):
Lulu Oaii. It's a lot for that, Julie. Man, I'm
making air quotes when I say thanks. That's like scarring,
you know, but she'll remember that for the rest of
her life. Well, way to go. Uh. If you want
to try to gross this out, it's gonna be tough
to top that one. But let's keep it going, shall we.
(32:08):
You can send us an email send it off to
stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
How d everybody, it's may or at least that's the
date of this Selects episode. I picked this one out
Chiggers colon the Phantom Menace because boy, Chiggers are terrible
and they make you itch. And I would say that
listening to this episode will make you itch. So that's
(00:21):
my goal on this Saturday, to make everybody itch. I'm
really sorry, but here we go with Jiggers Hold the
Phantom Menace. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:44):
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there,
so you should know Jerry's head Chiggers. Yeah, me too,
I have not. I'm really glad I was like Chigger.
It seems like Tracy is making a pretty big deal
out of the in this article. Yeah. Tracy Wilson of
Stuff You Miss in History Class wrote this, who recently
(01:04):
got married? Congratulations Tracy? Yeah. And she wrote if you've
ever heard her say the word mouth parts in the show,
Tracy wrote it, chances heart she wrote it. She wrote
ticks and mosquitoes. H did you write bees? She did
a whole insect? Sweet? She spent a lot of time
knee deep in insects. Yeah, and this, well, this isn't
(01:25):
even an insect spoiler. Oh, you just removed the fact
of the podcast. You think I think. So, I don't
think you did. I'm just teasing. Okay, I'll bet I
know what you think it is because I think the
same thing. All right, Well we'll see. Okay, I challenge you.
I challenge you back. We throw down the gauntlet, which
(01:45):
is glove. So Tracy did make a big deal out
of checkers, but apparently it's a big deal, right well,
sure like if you ever had them, they're no fun.
No the deeper I got into the article the where
I was like, oh, yeah, this does sound really kind
of off. Yeah, and it's uh, this is just one everyone,
there's another itch inducing episode. And speaking of I got
(02:07):
my first little bow to poison ivy. Congratulations. Yeah. I
was clearing out stuff over the weekend and I was
in poison ivy and I knew it. I was like,
you know, I've never had it before. This sounds very
familiar and um, but I was still I'm no dummy.
I know how Murphy's law works. So I said, I
(02:27):
just said that out loud. Well, you just said that
out loud, or you just said I said, I'm not
allergic to I thought you were saying like that. I'm
no dummy. I said that too. Um, And I said,
so you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna be careful
and I'm gonna go take a shower pretty soon afterwards. Um.
And so it's not bad. But there are probably five
(02:48):
or six little, tiny little sets of bumps on each
leg pustules. Yeah, they're not bad though. And I looked
at him and said, you know what, that's freaking poison
ivy after all these years, finally got you. Yep, but
not too bad. Like my dad always said, poison I
will gets everybody one day. That his big saying. Uh So, anyway,
(03:10):
speaking of itching, that's my itch story of the day.
And this will make you itch because it made me
itch while reading it. I think you're right. So um,
it's actually it's funny. It didn't make me itch, maybe
because I've never had it. You're scratching yourself, right, I'm
pointing to myself in a weird place. I'm pointing my
finger to my skin and moving it around. But I'm
(03:30):
not scratching curiously. So, Um, everybody knows that chiggers are
insects that burrow into your skin and suck your blood. Um,
And I'm sorry you're being coy, my friend, I am
because you just lied three times. Burrow and oh, insects
that burrow in your skin, that suck your blood. That's right,
(03:52):
those are there's three lies in there. This is like
a highlights We have to go pick out what's wrong
with this picture. Chiggers are not insects. They are arachnets.
They are the larvae of the harvest mite. They do
not burrow into your skin and suck your blood. But
they're still what are the bumps? Well, you're being coy again,
(04:12):
but what they are actually doing is maybe even grosser
than sucking your blood. They are liquefying your cells into
a slurry that they can drink from a straw made
of your body. It's pretty Is that the fact for you? Yeah? Alright,
but we'll get there. Were the same one first one,
(04:33):
first of one. The first time we've ever high fives
in an episode? Is that right? Sure? I I would
have imagined that you could make like a video montage
of us like high fiving during episodes. I guess not. No,
so you said that, Um, these things are the larva
of harvest mites, right, and harvest harvest mites are arachnids.
They're related to spiders, so they're not insects. But you
(04:56):
can understand why people would think that um chiggers are
or our insects because chiggers have chiggers. The larva of
the harvest might have six legs, so you'd be like, well,
it's an insect. No, they haven't grown their adult legs yet. Apparently, Yeah,
I guess they get those two more legs at some point. Um,
they the adults are red and the little um larvae
(05:19):
are red. But um, you're not gonna see. That's one
of the problems with chiggers is you're not gonna see
like a mosquito landing on you or a flea, even
like you think a flea is small, a chigger is
like a tiny little dot that you will would never
notice and you may not even be able to see
at all with your eyeballs. All right, but sometimes you
(05:39):
can see several of them together basically forming a clump.
Yeah party together, yeah with one of them has Kid
from Kid and plays haircut or Aman Schumpert's more contemporaneously.
Oh yeah, that is a total kid and play haircut.
Did you know that Amman Schumpert delivered his own child
in his apartment purpose accidentally. The kid just came very
(06:02):
quickly and like he the nine one one dispatch had
to talk him through how to do it. But he
delivered his own child and his wife or girlfriend right
there and there and everything was good, totally great. Wow,
that's great news. He's a basketball player, by the way, people,
Oh yeah, people are, who's amunch Shopper. He plays for
the boom, for the calves Boom. So if you're an
(06:24):
adult harvest mite and you've grown up from a sugar
into an adult, you're gonna eat. It's actually a beneficial
little arachneed to have around because they're gonna eat the
eggs of other pests like mosquitoes, right, so you want
the adults around as an adult or um as the
second step the nymphs right after the larva. It's the
larva that suck. They don't suck, well, yeah, but the larva.
(06:49):
You know, you gotta have them, but you know, hopefully
they just stay in the yard. Although these things are
holy terrors to see if you are on their scale, Like,
if that thing's coming after you and your eggs, I'll
bet it's just really terrifying. They are parasitic though, Um,
they don't. The larva are. Yeah, they don't eat the
(07:12):
blood though, like we pointed out, like the fleas and
the ticks and the mosquitoes. No, they eat your skin cells. Right,
So here's what happens. Larva hatch um. Apparently an adult
female harvest might will go into the dirt and be like,
there's a bunch of eggs, champert is there to an
(07:33):
for them to hatch, so we can hasten their birth um,
And then the eggs do hatch and the harvest might
female tends to layer eggs all in one place. So,
if you are familiar with chiggers, if you've ever had
them in your yard, like one little patch of grass
can be totally overrun with chiggers, but then you just
turn a few degrees to your left, there's another patch
(07:55):
of grass that is totally devoid of them. Yeah. I
get the feeling. They don't get around too quickly either.
You know, they know they're pretty stupid low level animals
if you ask me. So, the eggs are laid in
one place, they hatch and the little larva come out
and they're like, blood meal, Give me a blood meal
that's not actually made of blood. That's basically what they say. Okay, Uh.
(08:20):
They hatch pretty much anytime during the year except for
the hard winters, and um, like you said, they want
that first meal. And the reason they want that first
meal is not just because they're ravenous little jerks. Um.
They actually cannot progress to that nimph stage, which and
then grow up to be adults unless they have a
complete first meal. They can have, they can have half
(08:43):
a first meal, they have three quarters and get and
get scratched off the body or brushed off the body,
and that's pretty much it. They generally will not go
back and finish that meal, so there's no starting over.
They're just like, well that's it. That's the end of millhouse,
my one chance and um. So it's like a complete
(09:04):
lose lose situation when a chigger bites a person, because
once you start itching as a person, you go to
scratch the area and there goes the chigger. They don't
latch onto your skin, they don't burrow into your skin,
so the moment your your finger makes contact with them,
they're gone. Um the well they leave behind is there
and persists for a while, but they didn't finish their
(09:26):
their meal and they die. But you still get the
scratch or the horrible itch. It's lose loose. They need
to stay away from humans. Well they do because there
are a lot of animals that don't mind the chigger
on their body, so they can get their full meal
deal there and go on to live a great and
healthy life without getting scratched off. So, um, they don't.
(09:48):
They don't want to be on a human And I
mean you would think like how long does could their
meal possibly last? We're talking like buffet level length of time? Uh,
four days, four days to four days, I think about it.
That's time for us. Like how long is four days
to a harvest? Might larva? You could probably do the math.
(10:13):
It's like seven eight days. Figure out chigger years or
probably it's probably most of their life. Yeah, you know. So, Um,
there's a bunch of different kinds of chiggers around the world. Um,
and they're actually I mean they are pests, they are parasites.
But um, there's only like at least one as far
as this article says that is really problematic for humans.
(10:37):
The lepo Trobidium deliens nice might. It's common to Asian
and it can carry typhus, a form of typhus which
can kill you if it's untreated. Yeah, it's cured with
antibotics pretty easily. But um, if you're out in the
middle of nowhere, it can kill you. But don't worry
unless you um or in certain parts of Asia. Not
(10:58):
a problem, right, chigger, We'll just annoy you. Yeah, that's it.
They're basically just a total annoyance. And by annoying humans,
they die. It's stupid. All right, Well, let's take a
little break here and we will come back and talk
about some of the wonders of the jigger. All right,
(11:36):
we've covered Do we cover fleas? Yeah? I want to
say yes, they definitely need a blood meal. We've covered fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, spiders, scabies.
Did we Oh? Yeah? Man, I just it's really getting
a little too much to try and remember now. Yeah,
you know, I mean there's like lost episodes just because
(11:58):
we forgot them. It's officially especially getting out of hand.
I guess we should stop. No, we keep going, my friend,
um brain heart, so bad chuck. Alright, So what I
was talking about was the wonders of the chigger. They
have a lot of little things that they have about
them that make it um and make them able to
perform this uh surgery on your skin. Well put, it
(12:23):
is kind of like surgery. It is um. But again
they aren't latching on. They're just kind of hanging around.
And when you get a chigger on your skin, it
actually will spend usually hours looking for a good place
to go try to get a meal because, um, they
have these little tiny mouth parts. There's the word that
makes the appearance which lets you know it's a Tracy
(12:45):
Wilson joint. Right. Um, but they don't pure skin very easily,
at least not human skin. Uh, tough skin that you
would find most on most places of your body. Chigger
can't bite through. But which is why you will get
chigger bites in play. Is like the back of your knee,
like in your armpit, places where the chigger can can
(13:05):
get its mouth parts. What are they called celisera celiserai
clisserai clissari clisser I explains it all, Um, that's why
you'll get those bites in those areas because that's where
they can get their clisser I into. That's right. They're
light sensitive, which means they're gonna hang out in the
shade mostly if it was up to them at least
(13:28):
um it's uh, the sun is gonna dry out their body,
so that's why they head towards the shade. I mean
you can like kill them basically. Uh. And so also
when a host um comes near, there's like your dog
casting a shadow, the chiggers go, we'll over there. I
think that's pretty clever. There's a shadow. Let's that means
something is alive with skin. That means that, in some
(13:51):
weird way, chiggers are aware of shadows. That's right. I mean,
like some dogs aren't aware of shadows or don't understand them.
I think probably most dogs. Have you ever seen that?
Like baby two three year old toddler um who sees
her shadow for the first time. He just starts f
freaking out trying to get away from it. It's really
(14:11):
really cute. So it was a possessed baby kind of.
That's sad, it's cute. I saw that movie that was
The Exorcist. That's what I'm talking about. Uh. They are
very temperature sensitive. As well. So when they coming to
contact with a host, and the host is the thing
that it's gonna feed on. Um, it's gonna detect that
(14:33):
has like you know, it's not infra red, but it's
gonna detect that body heat, right and say, all right,
there's something I can try and latch onto. So it's
like predator in that respect. Yeah, a little bit kind
of No dreadlocks, No, those are those are a nice edition.
If you ask me what else, Um, I think it's hilarious.
Tracy called it upward mobility. They like to climb to
(14:56):
the tops of stuff. And I remember this one from Ticks.
Remember that the ticks were just like grasp things, like
little tiny lobsters, just stand there and wait for something
to pass by, and as it does, they grab it. Um.
They don't stand there with their arms outstretched the whole time.
Now that's a stress position. Um. There's something called the
questing response, which is another hilarious term. They're questing. Yeah,
(15:20):
they get up on their tippy toes. They're they're standing
up with their their arms raised up towards the heavens. Yeah,
imagine for a meal of human cell imagine John Cusack
can say anything but take away the boombox, right, that's
a questing position. Yeah, the chickers are there in their
little overcoat and their spiky hair and their bad attitudes. Um,
(15:42):
I just saw you know John Roderick, a friend of
the show, John Roderick, Yeah, great Seattle musician. He tweeted
the other day about silverfish, you know, the little insects.
He said, why don't we call silverfish what they were
clearly meant to be called? Sink lobsters. It really struck
me as funny. They don't look fishy at all. Still,
ver sure, sink clapster. That's a great one. Right. And finally,
(16:06):
they are touch sensitive. They have these little hair like
sensory organs on their body to help basically to help
them find everything from hosts to each other. There. Yeah,
you know they're like, let's get together and really do
some damage on this guy's arn't pit. Yeah, or you
see that waist band. It's a great place to hide
Underpant's band. Yeah, Underpant's band. Yeah what is said in here? No,
(16:31):
that's what I said. Uh, but that is a great
place to hide because, like we said a few times,
you'll easily scratch them off. So they want to go
somewhere where you may not be thinking about scratching. Yeah,
I was surprised that they go. I could see kind
of the outside of the armpit, back of the knee,
the waist band, underpant's band. Um, they're protected there, they are,
(16:52):
but at the same time, it's warm there and their
temperature sensitive. So you sure who think since they're seeking shade,
they would go to a cooler spot. But there's probably
not too many cool spots on the human body that
are protected. Not really, I just said a bunch of
contradictory stuff. So all these things help the chiggers find
their host. But as Tracy points out, that's that's half
(17:15):
the battle. Yeah, and when you find a chigger on you,
it's probably sorry that it chose you as it's one
four day meal. Because they don't like humans, they'll they'll
climb onto anything just about any vertebrate animal, snakes, turtles, birds,
for little birds, chipmunks. They don't like us because we
(17:37):
take hot showers every day, that's right, And a lot
of these animals don't have any kind of response to
being bitten by a chigger, So the likelihood of the
chigger being undisturbed for four days while it's having its meal.
Fourth meal is what we're gonna call it, Like taco bell.
Do you remember that they try to invent another meal. Um,
(18:00):
they're they're so they're not gonna get brushed off on
these things. Humans almost invariably brush chiggers off because right
when we start scratching again, it removes the chigger. Um,
So they're there. They don't seek us out as prey.
It's just it's just total happenstance. Yeah. And like you said,
since they need that thin skin, um, little kids are
more likely to get bitten by a chigger than an old,
(18:23):
leathery old sea captain. Let's say. Yeah, and little kids
who can't take being teased really are vulnerable to chigger
buttons because they're thin skin, very nice. You know, the
ones who were like shorts with knee socks pull all
the way up here. Those kids, Yeah, and their all
their nose are always running because they're crying. They just
stopped crying, those kind of kids. Uh. So, like I said,
(18:47):
a hot shower, uh is a is a great way
to kill. It's it's great for a lot of reasons.
A great way to kill chiggers. It's a great way
to keep your body clean. It's a great way to
unwind at the end of a long day working in
the yard, because that's where you're gonna get your chicker
bites most likely. Yeah, and the yard, Yeah, especially if
you are the type of gets like letters from the
(19:09):
neighborhood association saying mow your lawn you might have chickers.
I will never live where there is a neighborhood association.
No way, no way. Now, you know, in some place,
because it's not my thing. In some places, a neighborhood
covenant supersedes local law. Yeah, unbelievable. Like your mailbox has
(19:32):
got to be like this. You can't paint your house
that color, not not for me, and you gotta pay
us a certain amount of money to boss you around
every month. Nope, yep, that's why I have a stack
of car batteries aside my house with like old wood
that I haven't used still in it's like Sandford and
sun out there, and then like and paint with a brush.
(19:57):
It says, welcome children on beside your Alright, So, uh,
should we take another break and talk a little bit
more about the weird fact of the day. Yes, all right, buddy,
(20:33):
we talked about the mouth parts. So what they do
is they get that calissar i and they make a
hole in your skin normal enough, They inject saliva, which
contains digestive enzymes that make a slurry of your skin cells.
We talked about other insects that do similar things like this,
so it's still pretty like, all right, no big deal.
(20:55):
Then it gets weird. It does. And I don't know
if it's because they have specific enzymes or something, but
I didn't see this happening with anything else, did you know?
But no, you drop it on him, you refuse, all right.
So what happens is they have in these secretions. What
happens is they break your They break your skin cells down,
(21:16):
which makes that slurry, which is good, slurp it up.
But then the surrounding tissue hardens and it actually creates
a tube, a little hard straw in your skin in
the wound. Yeah, called a style of stme. What do
they do with that? They drink out of it. They
use a straw to slurp up your wrecked cells. Yeah,
(21:40):
And the longer they're in there, the longer the straw
is the style of dome the style of dome. Yeah.
I saw a paper from two thousand four and in
the abstract that said it's something like it seems that
style iss domes form as a reaction to chiggers. So
I don't know if they thought like maybe this was
part of a chigger or something like that, but I
guess it's a recent finding that that stylist domes form
(22:04):
and that's how chiggers actually eat because they don't have
any probiscus or anything like that. They're pretty much really
weak proboscis one of those. Um, they're just not great
insects or arachnets at all. Yeah, they're not. They can't
bite very easily, they can't suck anything out. They um,
(22:25):
they're just they're useless. But your body just happens to
help them out. Well, they have that that magic juice,
I guess, so that's pretty cool, you know. Yeah, uh
so with that magic juice, that's gonna be one of
the two reasons you're gonna be itching a lot. Some
people react quite adversely to that juice. Other people it's
(22:45):
not that bad, um, but it's still going to itch
no matter what. And it's not just the juice. You're
reacting to. I think that's probably what first gets your attention.
But the thing that causes the persistent itch is that
stylist dome your body's own reaction, which seems to be
forming basically a hollow tube of temporary scar tissue in
this wound area, and then that actually causes some sort
(23:08):
of itch reaction as your skin heels, and that can
take a very long time to heal. This is the
point where I was like, oh, having chiggers actually does
suck terribly. Yeah. I think if you had a chigger
that was able to complete its full four day meal,
your toast means you haven't showered for four days. Yeah. Uh,
(23:29):
that's when your style of stomb is going to be
at its peak of hardness and length, right, and it's
gonna have the worst reaction, right, So what can you do? Uh?
There are home remedies you've heard, maybe like painting over
chigger bites with a clear nail polish, right, or any
kind of nail polish. Really, I think, well, yeah, sure,
(23:51):
if you got flair, some sparkly gold, I'll get to
put some dots on my armpit, and then why not,
I'll put them around my eye as well. So what's
the deal there. You're just choking it out. Um. A
lot of people would say, yes, you're covering up this
the chigger that's burrowed into your skin and it is
now suffocating to death. It's like choke on, choke on
(24:13):
your meal. But that's wrong because again, chiggers don't burrow
into your skin, right, and Tracy points out very acutely,
by the time you even notice it, it's very likely
the chigger is not there any longer. Right, So if
you're painting something over your skin, um, really, what you're
doing is protecting the wound area from um, the air
contact with the air, which can aggravate it. So it
(24:34):
does help. But Tracy says, just use anti itch cream.
It's way better. Yeah, like cortisone or something. So what
it is? Yeah, yeah, Um, don't try to I don't
know why she felt the need to put this in here,
but we might as well say it. Don't try to
remove the style of dome. I can see people doing that,
trying to dig it out. Yeah, no, you don't need
(24:55):
to know. I can definitely see people doing that. I
think that was worth it. Um. She also says, don't
use turpentine you, I've never heard that. Yeah, people do
all sorts of dumb stuff. Yeah, I mean, I guess
if you could soak in a tub of gasoline and
that would probably kill it. Lighted on fire problems. Yeah,
most of these home remedies odd you should just shy
(25:16):
away from. I think, yes, only use remedies approved by
modern Western medicine. Modern Western medicine. It's the only treatment
you need. Um, the name chigger, they believe you ever
heard of sand fleas huh, like in Florida or anywhere? Yeah,
these those are chico fleas c h I G O
(25:39):
e um. And another name for that is the jigger flee.
And they think that chigger came from just sort of
mashing those two names together, even though it's not the
same thing. No, it's not. Those actually do burrow into
your skin and they lay eggs there, and then the
eggs like to feast on you. So not good. But
I guess there's just nothing but confusion surrounding chiggers. Yeah, nothing,
(26:00):
so chuck. If you want to protect yourself against sugar
invasions in your armpits and your underpants bands, what do
you do well? If you're working? If you work in
your yard and your garden a lot. Um you wear
long sleeves, wear pants to you know, cover up as
much body as you can physically. Um, you can wear
(26:22):
deet if you want, or any other kind of insect repellent.
This says you can also use sulfur. I've never heard
of that. I haven't either. I wonder if you, like,
you just burned incense near you or something. I don't know.
It would smell like bathing egg water. Yeah, oh god,
your bathe in like you know what? Just I will
never ever try because I hate pickled things anyway. But
(26:43):
pickled eggs they're they're not bad. They're usually a little
too sweet. Uh. There's see those things floating in a
jar and it's like I feel like I'm in a hospital,
the like where you found the head. Yeah, the the
I think it's the Chinese, probably Japanese and Korean too.
There's a type of pickled legs where they soak them
(27:04):
in a brine like and it's the saltiest thing you
will ever eat, and they're mucky and brown. Those are
those are not good. The other ones are fine. They're
just not they don't taste that great. I think I
don't want food soaked in liquid. I think pickled stuff
is really good for you. I mean, I hate pickled things,
(27:24):
but just love pickled every period. Like soaking something in
a solution, I just don't want. I don't even like marinades.
I'm a dry rub guy. Are you really? Yeah? You
know I didn't know that about you. Yeah? Yeah, you know,
like sauces of any kind or is it the pre soaking,
like pre cooking, soaking that well, pre marinating, I don't like.
(27:47):
I mean, if you're if you have a quality French
saucier at your disposal, I'll take a little, alright, but
put it on the side in a plastic cup. But
I don't. I don't like. There was this place near
Emily Shop that was it's now closed. I kind of
feel bad for saying this, but I think I know why.
Because they used too much sauce. Dude. They had this
delicious crispy, crispy fried chicken that they dumped this gravy
(28:10):
sauce on top. They never just put it on the side, No,
and by the time it got to the table, it
wasn't crispy fried chicken anymore. I just don't get it, huh.
But yeah, I'll I'll eat a sauce if it's yeah,
what you're describing as smothered chicken, that's totally different. But
it was fried. Huh, fried and smother can't do that.
Those two things are never supposed to come together. Um,
(28:33):
if you want to see if you have chiggers on
your property, um, Tracy says, you can take a piece
of black paper, black construction paper, maybe from your child, right,
give me that, stupid kid, and go out and lay
it on the ground, uh, near where you think there
might be chiggers, and you might see little tiny, tiny
(28:54):
red things. She doesn't just say that. She says to
take a piece of paper and defy physics by standing
it up on its edge. Is that what she says?
And then the chiggers will follow their natural urges and
climb to the top of the paper. Like what world
does Tracy living? Well? And I mean you're you know,
you're in the grass. You can stand a piece of
paper up in the grass. Maybe, yeah, not if you
(29:14):
take care of your grass. This isn't like that Twilight
Zone episode where Darren from the Which like flips the
coin and it lands on its side. Oh man, you
know what happened in Pe in college. One time my
pe teacher basketball teacher threw a pen, remember the paper
mate pens that had the the cap with the just
(29:36):
sort of flat top. Yes, he just flipped it up
in the air, meant to catch it, didn't. It hit
the ground, bounce and landed completely straight up and down
on its cap. That's exactly like that Twilight Zone episode.
He could hear everyone's thoughts after that point. Now, well
I dropped that class immediately. That's smart. Come out of here,
very smart. Where you like which ran out the door
(29:56):
and you're doing Satan's work? Oh man, all right, well
that's chiggers. Oh we didn't say if you really want
to control chiggers in your yard, just take care of
your yard. They will go away. They won't want to
hang out there. Yeah, there won't be long stalks of
grass for them to climb up to. In quest from
that's right. Uh. If you want to know more about chiggers, horrible,
(30:18):
horrible little things, you can type that word into the
search bar how stuff works dot com. And since I
said search bar, it's time for a listener. Hey guys,
I'm a new fan. I must admit I'm getting addicted.
Recently listened to the Anesthesia podcast, and I heard the
listener mail the Harvard student and needed five numbing injections
to the nasal cavity to breaking her nose. She thinks
(30:42):
she can win up it here. It's not bad. I know.
I'm sorry. Uh. In one in college, one of my
molars became infected. I need a root canal. The day
of the procedure that Dennis gave me shots in the gum,
which Chuck said was the worst thing ever in life.
After a few numbing shots, he got to work drilling
uh into the infected tooth. Unfortunately he didn't give me enough.
Once he got down to the root, I felt it
(31:04):
and it felt awful, so I said to the dentist, Hey,
I learned the dentist. He then pulled out what must
have been the largest needle in existence and gave me
a shot directly into the infected root of my school.
Oh man, I think that has the nose beat O. Uh.
This made me. She said that she takes pain well,
she said, but this made me sob uncontrollably. It was
(31:25):
ten years ago, and I can still vividly recall the
flash of blinding pain when the needle made contact. To
make matters worse. That evening, my gum swelled dislodged the
temporary crown. I had to go back the next day
to have it refitted. So that's my injection story. Like
I said, I'm not sure if it's worse than the
five in the nose. I'd say both were pretty terrible.
I hope you enjoyed the read Julie yeaste from Honno
(31:47):
Lulu Oaii. It's a lot for that, Julie. Man, I'm
making air quotes when I say thanks. That's like scarring,
you know, but she'll remember that for the rest of
her life. Well, way to go. Uh. If you want
to try to gross this out, it's gonna be tough
to top that one. But let's keep it going, shall we.
(32:08):
You can send us an email send it off to
stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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