Lousy

Human Highlighter Suit Tally: 9

Last week our kids’ school emailed us a letter with the following subject line:  “Kindergarten Lice/Piojos.”  Well, this wasn’t the first I’d heard about lice at the school, and not only in kindergarten.  I knew of 1^st and 2^nd grade cases as well, which means it’s probably a downright infestation.  As with mice, if you see one, you know there are more where he came from.

As I read the email sitting at the dining room table, I began to sputter, to no one in particular: “They want us to check our kids ourselves!  Isn’t that what they have a nurse for?  Isn’t this why we are paying private school tuition?  Why don’t they check the kids at school?”  C.C., who was in the middle of playing a game with Milo, said, “I got checked in my classroom.”  “Me, too,”  Milo put in.  “You did?  Did they find anything?  Why didn’t you tell me?”  My head started to itch.

Alec and I do not conform to many gender stereotypes, but when it comes to rodents and parasites that live on your body, I turn into a total girl.  I am the one shrieking on top of the bed, hyperventilating and scratching in odd places.  So of course, I delegated lice duty to Alec.  He had, after all, worked for several summers as a camp counselor and so had some relevant experience. 

Two of my friend Karen’s kids have had it this year already.  It’s a real pain in the neck if you get them.  You have to wash all of the linens and the kids’ stuffed animals in hot water, and keep combing and combing for the nits—which are the lice eggs. 

Being away for the whole bedbug drama in New York City had made me feel as if I’d gotten over, and now this.

Now, I know lice are common.   I have received similar letters from my kids’ schools—public and private—in Brooklyn.  But in Brooklyn everyone just takes their kid to Abigail Rosenfeld, aka “the Lice Lady,” and she takes care of it. There is no Lice Lady in Barcelona.  It’s every parent for herself.

“We need one of those special combs,” I told Alec.  He came home with the special comb and some spray stuff called Repelice.  Alec is convinced that it’s snake oil but bought it to get me to pipe down.

That night, everyone got a hair wash, after which Alec inspected us all with the comb.  “Are you sure you know what you’re looking for?” I ask.  “I’m going to look on the internet to make sure you know what they look like.”  I move toward my laptop, but Alec stops me.  “Don’t do it,” he says.  “You’ll just get grossed out with those pictures.   Trust me.”  I heed his advice, imagining my dreamspace filled with giant lice. 

“Did you ever think about the word ‘lousy’?” I asked him.  “It comes from being full of lice.”

“Huh. Are you sure?”

I do a quick search on google.  Here’s what podictionary.com says:

“Originally in 1377 something that was lousy was infested with lice.  The word lice in turn comes from Old English and can be found way back to circa 725.” 

So things have been lousy for a very long time.  And the word “louse”?  Dictionary.com gives the slang definition as:  “a contemptible person, especially an unethical one.”

These are creatures you do not want living on your body.

Even nitpicker, the person who tries to rid you of the lice, has a negative connotation:  “someone who makes small and unjustified criticisms.”

One day last week I brought the kids to the school library after school for some extra books.  As we descended the stairs from the library floor to the ground floor, we could see down to the nurse’s little cubicle.  She was cleaning a big bowl of lice combs.  “Look!”  C.C. cried out.  “There are the nitpickers!”  Eew.

Humans have the unfortunate distinction of hosting two different kinds of lice—head lice and pubic lice.  This is because we have two entirely separate hairy zones.  Take that fact to your next cocktail party, especially if you are near the shrimp table, and you are sure to get clear access to all the shrimp you can eat.

In the end, we all came out clean.  We sprayed the kids’ hair with Repelice the next morning before school and it made their hair look greasy and stringy, as though we hadn’t washed them for a week.  I’ll take the tradeoff, if it works.