I’ve got writer’s block again. I keep telling myself that whenever I have an idea for a story that I’m gonna write it down and keep a running list that I can turn to for just such an occasion. But that list does not exist. I am painfully pitiful at planning ahead.

So, brace yourself for another rambling dribble of nonsense. What you are about to experience will not make your day. Continuing to read may, in fact, make you wish that you had the next 7 minutes back so that you could do something useful, like clip your toenails.

This is a story about chiggers.

I spent the entire day doing yardwork a couple of days ago. I had no idea what I was going to do with my day when I got up, but this is the beauty of retirement. I sit on the back porch drinking coffee until I am motivated to put on real clothes. Then once I put on jeans and tennis shoes, I consider my options. I have no set schedule. I have no deadlines. But I have a long list of things that need to be done.

I started thinking about dead tree limbs. Being a tree guy and having worked in a public garden before, dead limbs are an eyesore to me. The woodland edge along my driveway has an abundance of eyesores. Thus, the day began to take shape.

I loaded up my pruning tools and set out on a mission. The longer I walked and looked the situation over the more I cut. I swear I think I can spot a dead twig from 200 yards. It’s like a curse to a man that lives in the woods.

I was reaching up high in a water oak with two sections of a pole saw when my neighbor came by on her morning walk.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“I’m cutting dead limbs out of my trees.”

“Why are you doing that?”

Evidently, she does not see the significance of the work at hand. She does not share my vision.

“Because I’m tired of looking at them every time I come home. They’re ugly.”

“That’s not it,” she says. “You’re doing it because you’re retired, and you need something to do.”

A man’s work is never appreciated.

The tree pruning went on for a couple of hours. I followed that by an aggressive run of weed eating. I have over 1600 feet of driveway with areas that the mower cannot reach. I’ve been ignoring the unsightly tall grass all summer long. By the time I finished, it was time for lunch.

By way of future reference, tall grass is home sweet home to all sorts of voracious critters.

I hate to confess this, but I have become a Deal or No Deal junkie while I scarf down a sandwich and chips. The theme music worms its way into my brain. Where’s the million dollars? Case #14? “A million dollars could be in your case,” Howie says. The banker is heartless. The contestants take insane chances. The suspense kills me.

When I was a kid on summer break from school, I loved to watch Hollywood Squares. Password was another favorite. Mama would talk to the contestants on The Price is Right like she thought they could hear her. But you go back to school. You grow up and go to work. And game shows fade into oblivion.

These days there’s an entire network channel dedicated to nothing but game shows. 24/7 game show entertainment. Most of them bore me, but not Deal or No Deal.

Secretly, I used to chuckle at the old, retired guys who watched the game shows. I swore I wasn’t going to waste my time in front of the TV. Now, I am that guy for one hour several days a week.

After lunch I headed for the shop and gassed up the lawn mower. What started out to be a job of pruning a few trees has turned into an all-out commitment to yardwork. I could have spread it out over a few days, but I was determined to see the whole thing done before supper.

My mower is not big or fast. It took nearly three hours of bumping around the slopes and ditches to get it all done. I had to get off the mower to move rocks and limbs out of my way. The right rear tire was going flat, so I had to stop to put in some air. My nose and ears were full of dust. My back was starting to feel its age.

And when every blade was neatly manicured, I still had to strap on the backpack blower and clean off the driveway from the house all the way to the road.

That night I was worn out, but it was a good kind of tired. I slept well. But the next morning, I started scratching my left ankle. A little later I was scratching my left waistline. Then my left thigh. Then my left butt cheek.

I pulled my sock down to take a peek. I was horrified. I went to the bathroom where I could get a better look in the mirror. I raised my shirt. Oh my! I unbuckled and dropped my jeans. Good Lawd! My skin looked like I had measles. If there were 10 little red dots, I guarantee you there were a thousand.

Odd thing though, the grotesque fleshly massacre was situated entirely on my left side. Left ankle. Left calf. Left thigh. Left ribcage. Left arm pit. I even had a few dots at the base of the left side of my neck.

There was one exception. Just to the right of my belly button there was one bite. It was like he crossed over the line, took one taste, and said, “Nope. Ain’t going over there.”

The yardwork was Tuesday. The scratching began on Wednesday morning. I have bathed about as many times as a man can stand it and I have lathered myself in every type of lotion known to science.

When I got chiggers as a kid, they were not so picky about my skin. Left or right side did not matter. I’ve had them between my toes, behind my ears and buried up in those dark unmentionable places on my body. Mama would boil peach leaves. I’m guessing there was an eye of a Knute in there, as well. She would then take a cotton ball and rub every itchy corner of my body with her salve.

She did not believe in calamine lotion. If she thought an enema would help, she would have performed the unthinkable for the sake of healing. I was glad her treatment stopped with the peach leaves.

It’s been a long while since I’ve had a bout with chiggers. On a scale of 1-10, overall, I’d say the itching is about a 5. But there’s this one bite on my left middle rib that has my full attention. What I’d like to do is take a stiff hairbrush and scratch the living tar out of it.

A well-timed scratch feels so good.