It is time to warn everybody to be on the lookout for the dreaded chigger, which usually can be found tiptoeing up your body looking for a place to have a picnic.

Hot weather is Chigger weather. Chiggers are baby harvest mites that only want you for your body.

God created chiggers to teach humans how to scratch professionally.

Chiggers chew so quietly you never know they are eating you until it's too late.

A chigger's minimum daily requirement of vitamins and minerals is your leg.

Look on the bright side. Chiggers are so small you can't see them and they don't eat much. Imagine how you'd itch if chiggers were six feet tall.

Chiggers make terrible pets. Though, admittedly, it costs hardly anything to feed them.

A chigger is a tiny red bug that likes to bury up in your leg and have you for lunch. And dinner and breakfast.

Chiggers are so sneaky you don't even know they're eating you until after two or three meals. You'd think by now somebody would have invented a chigger alarm.

Today's exciting Chigger Tip: Scratching a chigger bite does not help. It is better to tape a dab of meat tenderizer on the welt with a Band-Aid. This won't help either, but you can't just sit there and scratch, you have to do something.

During the hottest days of summer, jillions of tiny, red chiggers will bite everybody in sight along the top of their socks and the bottom of their underwear. If you really want to frost a bunch of chiggers this week, don't wear any socks or underwear.

Chiggerologists believe the female chigger prefers to bite near the socks, while the male chigger likes underwear. This is only a theory, of course, since nobody can tell a male chigger from a female chigger.

Probably not even another chigger.

Chiggers are 100% crude. They not only eat your leg for lunch, but then they spit on it. It's the spit that makes your leg itch.

But trying to get even with a chigger is hopeless. They're so tiny, you can't even see one, much less spit on it.

There is a way to stop the itching. Mix a dab of ordinary meat tenderizer with a tablespoon of water and rub it on the chigger's picnic site. The tenderizer contains an enzyme called papain, which performs several miraculous wonders, one of which is the neutralization of chigger spit.

See how we learn things when we read to the bottom of the article.

Chiggers live only for today. Today they will eat, drink, and be merry in your skin -- for tomorrow you may scratch their heads off.

About the Author

Joe Hickman is editor and chigger lookout at http://HaLife.com