I recently threw a party to thank new friends for welcoming me to town. After my guests got tired of me not giving a straight answer to the question of why I moved to Lawrence, one finally stumped me with another query: “What has been the biggest culture shock you’ve encountered?”

I couldn’t think of any. I pretty much expected to find what I would find. I did, after all, grow up in Kansas. I came here to find unshocking culture – a slower pace, a laid-back attitude, a kinder, gentler atmosphere. Five months later, it’s pretty much been what I was expecting it to be. For that I am grateful.

I hate to admit that my freshman sociology professor at Tabor College was right when he told the class that one day we would love what we now hated about our culture. He picked on me to prove his point. “Betty (that was my nickname back then), what do you most hate about western Kansas culture?”

That was easy to answer: “Country music.”

“One day you will love it,” he said.

I promised him it wasn’t going to happen. I could never love country music, even if I lived to be 100.

So far, I’m right on that. Now, 40 years later, I still hate country music. But there are other aspects of Kansas culture I hated when I was 18 that I now love: potluck suppers, long pointless conversations, Sunday afternoon drives to nowhere in particular, impossibly cheerful public servants such as the Kansas Turnpike toll booth people (they are so friendly, I always want to stop and chat, despite the long line behind me).

Back to the party. An hour later, I suddenly came up with an answer to the culture shock question. “Chiggers. I’m having a hard time adjusting to chiggers. We didn’t have them on the East Coast.” I lifted my skirt to show numerous chigger bites around my ankles. (I have them all over my body but modestly only showed the ones below the knee.) I remember a few chigger bites from my youth during the two or three wet years we had in western Kansas. I remember putting clear fingernail polish on them, the only use allowable for fingernail polish in our home.

“How am I getting all these chiggers?” I asked my Lawrence friends. “I don’t roll around in the grass. At most, I merely walk across the lawn to drag a hose to water my flower garden, and I always wear long pants, socks and shoes when I’m outside.”

“Do you wash your socks and pants after each wearing?” asked a biologist friend.

“No, I only wear the socks 10 minutes here and there, so I re-wear them a few times before tossing them into the laundry basket.”

So that’s how I’m getting all those chigger bites. They grab onto my clothing and stay there until me, the chump, puts them back on, providing them easy access to the environment they need.

I’m the clueless host no more, you chiggers. I’m now going to wear socks only one time. And I’m going to scrub my legs and feet immediately upon entering the house after yard work. Plus, I’m swearing off all picnics.

As for my treatment of choice, the whole nail polish thing is a myth. In fact, the whole notion of them burrowing into the skin and staying there until you deprive them of oxygen is a myth. This I have just discovered from my guru on all things in the physical environment, my landlord, who is a font of knowledge on all growing and crawling things.

Throw out what your mother told you. Here’s the real deal. The chigger is a tiny tick-like creature that goes through four stages. The larva is the parasitic stage that feeds on us. They lurk on the soil and in grass, waiting for a suitable host. We are not their preferred host; they’d much rather latch onto small mammals, birds, reptiles or amphibians. The larvae attach themselves to the skin, generally hair follicles or pores, and suck fluids from the skin by inserting piercing tube-like mouthparts. (Picture a tiny six-legged orange bug with a built-in straw.) They inject a fluid into the skin that dissolves tissue, then suck up this nutritious liquified tissue.

But our white blood cells race to our defense. During this battle, we get welts and redness and insane itching, and the chigger usually dies. If their feeding attempt is successful, which is more likely if they pick on a mouse, the larva is engorged within three days and drops from its host and transforms into its nymphal stage – like adolescence, one step away from becoming a real adult. Neither the nymphs nor adults bother us.

Washing vigorously with soap and water after an encounter with your lawn is the best defense. Once you’ve been pierced by a chigger, the best you can do is use anti-itch cream to prevent scratching, which can lead to your skin becoming infected.

So what about the fingernail polish? Everyone I know, myself included, swears by it. Perhaps it helps by sealing off the skin and keeping us from scratching. Maybe the smell freaks them out and they stop their sucking and try to find a toad instead. (I am in the midst of a medical experiment: anti-itch cream on the bites on my right side, nail polish on the left side – so far the left is winning.)

Knowing the scientific truth doesn’t stop me from really hating those chiggers, which I thought were “jiggers,” a mispronunciation left over from my childhood. And a word to my former sociology professor: You were right about some things – after all, I came back. But you are also wrong. I will never learn to love country music, and I have no idea what that has to do with chiggers.