Lice Lessons

My son asked, “When is lice season?” My friend replied, “It’s always lice season.”  She added, “but fall seems to be a big comeback time for them because everyone’s returning from camp.”  Lice love to camp.  Who doesn’t?  All those little louse-sized kayaks-- I get it.  I reached out to this particular friend because she’s something of an informal local authority.  She’s had the devious little beasts in her home four times and has managed to treat all of her children herself without having to shell out the big bucks to go to Lice Be Gone, the notable lice removal money-maker in Short Hills.  Not that there’s anything wrong with Lice Be Gone.  It would be my first stop, too, if I had that kind of cash burning a hole in my pocket.  They treat shoulder length hair or longer hair for $250 and boys-type short hair for $150/$175-- $30 just to screen or check. 

I asked my friend for a tutorial.  “First of all,” she said, “Rid doesn’t work and it’s got too many chemicals.”  I remembered Rid from my childhood.  Those were the days.  “And the comb must be metal.  I bought mine on the internet.”  Of course you did.  All the best stuff comes from the worldwide inter-web.  “Then you need a cheap white drugstore conditioner or you can buy ‘Lice B Gone’.”  I said, “Also in drugstores?”  “No, the internet but conditioner works just as well.  Glop it on thoroughly and then put on a shower cap for an hour.  Then you take a section of hair and comb it through in all four directions—from the north, south, east and west sides.  Because the louse eggs, or nits, only cling to one edge of the hair.”  Wow.  That’s some ingenious nano-tenacity.  “Then you dip the comb in a cup of rubbing alcohol and wipe it off on a clean white paper towel.  The nits will be visible on the towel, or, floating in the cup.”  Great visual, I thought.

“How long does the comb out take?” I asked.  I was already exhausted from just listening.  “One hour for short and/or thin hair, two hours or more for long or thick hair.  I give the kids an ipad.”  Or, I thought, anything by Dostoyevsky.  “Then you bag up pillows and stuffed animals for 2 weeks—lice need a host to survive-- and wash everything in super hot water and put it in the dryer on high heat for at least 30 minutes, and vacuum whatever the kid was sitting on and the area around it.”  “I hadn’t built this into my schedule,” I said.  “No one ever does,” she said.  This was starting to sound like it should be added to the List of Time-Suck Buzzkills along with fender-benders and root canal.  “And then you basically have to repeat the process 3-4 times until all of the nits are gone.”  “What if you miss one?” I asked, starting to feel itchy.  “Well then they’re not gone, are they?  Do it again.  You can basically kiss your week good-bye.  You’ll never get it back.” 

“Why do lice want to live on us?” I asked.  She said, “I don’t care enough about them to want to know.”  According to the CDC website, they suck our blood-- life’s tiniest vampires—to the tune of 6-12 million infestations a year.  I said, “Does this combing out time with your 3 kids yield a close family bonding experience?”  “I’m usually drinking and swearing while I’m combing out, but, sure.”  “That’s your zen approach?”  I asked.  She said, “The first time I got them I cried.”  I said, “You yourself got lice?”  “Yup.”  I reached up and scratched my head then quickly regretted it.  One of the moms of a kid who attended my son’s backyard birthday party called the day after with news.  Apparently her child had caught lice from another friend at a sleepover the night before.  Fabulous, I thought, then emailed all the parents of my son’s party guests. 

I asked my friend, “What’s the biggest mistake people make about treating lice?”  She glowered.  “Not telling other people.  YOU MUST TELL.  You can’t be embarrassed.  You’ve got to tell all the parents of the kids your kid has been in contact with for at least a week.  And you have to keep treating it.  One treatment isn’t going to do it.  YOU MUST KEEP TREATING until you find nothing.  There’s a policy in schools where if you treat the kids only once they can return, but I think there should be a ‘No Nits’ policy.”  “You’re hard core,” I said.  She looked at me with comic skepticism.  “Have you had lice in your home?” she said.  I answered, “Not since I was a kid.”  “Your son hasn’t had lice, yet?”  “No.”  “Well, consider yourself lucky.  For now.”  She shook her head and smiled in a just-you-wait way.  I said, “I’ve heard that lice like clean hair and we only shampoo twice a week in our house.”  “That’s why?”  “No, we just naturally tend towards filthiness.  We’re like the French.”  She laughed and said, “Excellent.”

It was time to wrap up my tutorial.  She told me that I would have to wait and see a few days if my son got lice from the birthday party kid.  In the meantime I should use some sort of naturally scented spray deterrent I could buy at Whole Foods, but if a louse made it onto his head or mine, it only needed to lay one egg.  I told her I understood.  As I was leaving, I asked, “Is there anything worse than lice?”  “Yeah,” she said, “bedbugs.”  We both shuddered.  Enough said.