The Joy of Lice

This is a true story. I remember when my ex-boyfriend's daughter had lice. He told me he couldn't get rid of it because he had blonde hair and couldn't see the nits. It was being told in hindsight, so we were both laughing.

It wasn't until a few years ago that I got lice. And I stopped laughing. About everything. It all began when I was on lunch break and had to go to a counseling appointment. My head was a little itchier than usual, and when I went to brush my hair, I saw something move in the mirror. I looked a little closer and saw bugs just having a party on my HEAD!!!!! I was so upset that I was glad to be at the counselor's office. However, she was not so welcoming at the door when I was standing there crying that I had lice. In fact, her reaction (telling me to leave and not come back until it was gone) was not what I expected at all. Of course, at this point, I didn't realize the stigma attached to lice. It became my mission in life to protect my children from and to kill the bugs on my head. I tried everything.

I went into Walgreens and bought every lice-related product they had on the shelf. I think I spent $100. I didn't care. The important thing was that I was going into battle. I expected to completely devastate the opposing army, as they were very small. I mean, how hard can it be, right?

So I treated my head with the stuff in the little bottle. I left it on an extra ten minutes, just to be safe. I combed my hair with all three of the combs that came with the stuff I bought. The little plastic one was not very good. It broke almost immediately. But that could have been my fault. I liked the metal ones, even though they ripped my hair out, because the teeth were sturdy, and you could see clearly if anything moved after you raked your head. The shorter metal one had the most capturing power. Sometimes I would get little lice on the comb, some were covered in blood because they had been trying to dig under the skin for a place to hide. Some were white, but they wouldn't move until you held the comb perfectly still for a few seconds and waited to see if anything moved. If not, it was only dandruff.

Having head lice can launch the most obsessive search for lice and their nits that is only possibly rivaled by the paranoia of a crack addict getting eye level with the floor to find that missing sliver of crack he could have possibly dropped.

I got tons of "advice" from people who had done the lice thing before. I searched websites for more information. The consensus seemed to be that it was hard to get rid of. I was leaving no stone unturned in my fight.

I read somewhere that fleas and lice were in the same family, so I had to spray the whole house with bug killer intended for fleas. I bought the indoor/outdoor kind that promised to last nine months. I also washed and dried every piece of linen, even clothes I hadn't worn in years. I threw stuffed animals and pillows into the dryer, where they stayed until they were ready to scald me upon removal.

My head was still itching, so I moved on to blow-drying my head covered with mayonnaise and a shower cap. I went to bed with vaseline in my hair. I swam in chlorine. I tried olive oil. I tried vinegar. I still have some of those shower caps left somewhere. I should have bought stock in that company. I had been warned about alcohol being a bad idea (it caused nerve damage in someone else's children), so I passed on that one. I did try dog shampoo, however.

Then I switched to the other brand. I treated and retreated with that one, too. Meanwhile, the washer and dryer were starting to buckle under all the laundry I was running through there. I was on my second gallon of bug juice when my roommate returned from her road trip. (We look back and laugh on all this now). I believe her words were something to the effect of, "Laura, if you spray one more squirt out of the bug sprayer in this house, I am going to have to ask you to leave. You are going to kill my cats."

Well OK, I thought, the house was probably free of bugs by now anyway, she was right. But my head was just so ITCHY. I had the daycare check my head. They couldn't find anything but dandruff. Nope, I was still itchy, They had to just be so small you couldn't see them. I bought this little machine that had a comb on it, and it would "detect" and then electrocute the lice as you combed. But for some reason, the only one getting shocked was me. And it HURT. WHO KNEW that such a little machine would pack such a shock!!! It was only a double A battery.

A girl at my work suggested I vacuum my head. "After all, they recommend you vacuum the floor, so....."

I was out of there so fast that she didn't even finish her sentence. Eckerd's had a handheld vacuum on clearance. Perfect. So I sat in my office working, taking breaks intermittently to vacuum my head. My coworkers were beginning to think I was cracking up. Most of them were laughing behind my back. The rest of them just laughed openly.

Finally, one girl took me aside and explained to me that the nits need to be removed by someone else. As a single parent, I didn't have that luxury of HAVING someone else. My mom couldn't see the nits (I thought that was just a convenient excuse until something later proved to me her eyesight was going). No one else could see the nits. So this girl at work went into the bathroom with me. We sat in two chairs, and she picked out the nits. I had killed everything that was alive. All that was left were the empty nits. The brown ones have something in them. The white ones are old and empty. And if they are pretty far out there on the hair shaft, you probably killed that one with the last treatment.

I had gotten rid of the lice, but I had also done some serious damage to my hair and scalp. I cut it pretty short, and spent a lot of time conditioning it. It was still itchy, because I had overloaded it with chemicals that dried it out. It took about three or four months to feel normal again. However, I still scratch my head if someone mentions lice. I think that is pretty universal, though.

By the time we got lice again a few years later, I had learned a little bit. There was this stuff called Hair Clean 123, and it kicked the lice's arse. We did a little spraying and ran some stuff through the washer and dryer, but the atmosphere was somewhat more relaxed. I was also married then, so I was able to ask him repeatedly to check my head. We stood out there in direct sunlight where we could see clearly, picking at each other and at the children like monkeys.

Then we got it a couple of years ago, again. This time, I couldn't get any of the Hair Clean 123, but I knew it had natural ingredients, so I went to a local herbalist. She had an inexpensive oil made of lavender, eucalyptus, rosemary, jojoba and apricot. I think the Hair Clean 123 had anise and coconut oils. Whatever. It works. She also had this spray for the pillows and something to add to the wash. But I just used Borax on the floors and in the laundry. I did spray the mattresses on both sides with the bug spray, and I checked everyone's hair and combed them out for good measure.

But the frenzy is over. And I don't use that counselor anymore.