At my daughter’s new school, people aren’t putting their heads together to learn, because of a stubborn outbreak of head lice. It started before Christmas, and since the beginning of the year, the kids have had periodic spot-checks by moms armed with combs and popsicle sticks.
Hats and coats have been occasionally packed in garbage bags for the day, to stop the louses from jumping from coat to coat. And while everyone keeps insisting that this outbreak is not a question of anyone’s hygiene, conversations still don’t proceed very far without a disgusted shake of the shoulders and a vocalized “Ewwww!”
Why do I mention this, besides getting a little shudder out of you? It’s to point out one method of eradicating lice that I hadn’t thought of: Call a professional. Hair Fairies is a nationwide string of kid-friendly hair salons that specializes in inspecting kids’ scalps and getting rid of lice and nits. The first couple times I heard about the service, I had to laugh, but parents have been hiring them because sometimes the lice are hard to recognize. Also, after the first three or four times, the glamour of inspecting a kid’s scalp begins to wear off. We’ve all got better things to do than groom each other like baboons.
All I’m sayin’s, That is a specialty that I never would’ve thought of.
Head lice? Bah! When I was a kid, it was pinworms we were passing around.
Pinworms?! Ah, luxury! When I was a lad, our heads were infested with hair weasels, which our mum and da had to pick off with tongs, douse with gasoline and set afire! It made for lively bedtimes, I’ll tell you.
Hair weasels? We used to dream of cute little hair weasels! We had epidemics back then. Why, back in 1969, half the second grade population at my school all had cooties!