LICE LICE BABY

Well, after twelve years of a carefree, itch-free life, I finally became a “nit-picker” last week. That’s right. My children, whose names I will not reveal in this post, had head lice. After years of hearing from other mom friends about the horrors of picking nits out of their children’s hair, I finally joined the ranks. And it wasn’t any fun.

Our lice story goes like this. About one week and ten days ago, both of my sons complained to me of “itchy heads”. Dutifully, I inspected their hair and found nothing more a few flaky, white fluffs that, owing to my self-taught medical training, I concluded to be “dandruff.” I bought dandruff shampoo for them and promptly forgot about it.

Following a ten-day gestation period, the son I will refer to as “B2” came into my bedroom near tears because he had “bugs in his head.” Now this is the sort of comment that no matter how slack you may be as a parent, will stop you in your tracks. You will not say, as my husband did, “Let your mom look at it.” (He will, for purposes of this post, simply be referred to as “Husband”). You will breathe in deeply and move the child into the light. With a delicate touch of fine-tooth comb, I uplifted the short strands of his blond hair. And there they were.

“Well, you have lice,” I declared. This immediately made him cry.

I rousted my other son, whom I will call for purposes of this post “B1”, out of bed for an inspection. With B2 crying in his pajamas, B1 rubbing his sleepy eyes and wondering what the fuss was about, and Husband jumping to action, I performed the next inspection. It seems that B1 and B2 both had head lice. I made a desperate late night call to my best friend and expert nit-picker for advice. May I never be the parent that other parents call because I have the most experience with this problem. She’s a trouper though. She orchestrated a battle plan: Husband to the drug store for lice-exterminating shampoo, combs, furniture spray, laundry detergent, olive oil, mayonnaise, scissors and buzz saw.

First, plan of attack. Cut off the hair. Now, Husband is a man of action. And take charge he did. But he is not, as history proved, much of a barber. He did perform emergency buzz haircuts. But as our stylist later determined, he started and “then panicked in the middle.” This is why B1 has a rather lopsided set of front bangs. Then the batteries on the clippers died in the middle of B2’s haircut, and Husband opted for a short scissor cut instead. B2’s hair looked like a lawn mowed by Edward Scissorhands.

Despite the cosmetic injury, the shampoo worked as intended. The bugs were immediately dispensed down the drain. From that point, we went from bed to bed stripping the sheets and pillowcases and stray stuffed animals for a scalding treatment in the washing machine. We all finally got to bed, deloused and defeated.

The next day, I did nine hundred loads of laundry. Then I made a nice Italian dressing and tossed it in their hair. They were forbidden from sitting on the furniture, and spent the morning on the floor playing card games and watching television. And I gather feeling lucky to be free from school for the day.

Admittedly, B2 was obsessed about who had given him the lice. Over and over, he listed the likely suspects. No matter how many times I explained that lice did not come with tags indicating their last known address, he accused different classmates of being the source. Frankly, he was a bit of an Eliot Spitzer about ratting out the culprit. (Without the hotel shenanigans, of course). Nothing I could say was going to stop him from returning to school and demanding that the criminal turn himself in. My best guess is that he got it from trading catcher’s helmets at the ballpark; but he couldn’t be dissuaded from his own theory: a girl had given it to him.

For a respite, we went to play laser tag. For those of you unfamiliar with laser tag, it involves going into a dark chamber, strapping on a pistol suit, and shooting infrared raybeams at unsuspecting participants. Inside the swirling fog and light maze, specialty lighting illuminates any white object. Any other day that might have been fine. But if you happen to carry a few nits in your head from a lice infestation, you won’t need Eliot Spitzer to rat you out.

While standing in the foyer waiting our turn, I spotted their two heads, freckled with white headlights. The nits were glowing like ceiling stars at Fernbank. I uttered some expletive under my breath, and eased toward them. Subtly, I tried to pluck the nits off their heads. At the same time, I acknowledged this was an excellent place for nit-picking if the birthday crowd would just back off.

Lice are easy, but nits are a problem. Over the last seven days, we’ve combed, we’ve picked, we’ve oiled, and we’ve cut hair. B2 has taken statements from all the students in his class. There are no leads and his investigation has gone cold. The good news is that one week later, I think we are finally nit free. And thank goodness for buzz cuts because if I had daughters, I think I might lose my mind. What’s left of it anyway.