You will survive this…barely.

You’re not prepared for this.  You just aren’t.  Do you feel itchy? I’ll check back in with you later, ok?

You have already gotten the notice from school. It was shoved in your child’s backpack, it’s crumpled from him shoving his lunchbox over it, perhaps even a little soggy after some unknown substance leaked on it…water from a drippy bottle, maybe an applesauce squeeze, or some sort of elementary school kid-ooze.  Either way, you’re more concerned about what the note communicates to you:

A case of lice has been reported at school.

The note also reassures you that lice doesn’t care if you’re clean or dirty. They just like scalp meat. Well, the note didn’t say that exactly but it was the general gist. LICE!  Oh god no. Please no.  You contemplate retreating to your bedroom with a glass of wine, but it’s only 3pm.  Instead, you immediately go to your child, do a quick pick thru of his hair, and see that all is right with the world.  A narrow escape. You begin your holistic preventative methods of spraying everything with tea tree oil. Maybe some olive oil head massages. You’ll throw in some sage smudging and incense for good measure. You’ve read that these methods are really safe and effective for keeping lice off your sweet child’s angelic crown of hair.

But nothing prepares you for that moment on a Friday night when your 8 year old walks into your room to say goodnight, all while itching his Bieber-esque mop of hair.  “Mom, my head itches,” he says before pecking you on the cheek with a kiss. You’re certain it’s just his dry scalp acting up, it’s winter afterall.  But to be sure you take him into the bathroom, turn on all the lights, and start looking thru his hair.

Section by section you scan for something that might be lice.  You’ve actually never had lice, nor even seen lice, so you really don’t know what you’re looking for.  And then all of a sudden time stands still and you see it….no wait…you see THEM.  BUGS!  There are bugs crawling thru your child’s hair.

There’s little white things on his strands of hair.  And there are little black spots on his scalp.  You come to find out that those black spots are feces from the lice. Not only does your kid have bugs…but the bugs are sh*tting in your kid’s hair. Droppin deuces like it’s their job. Pooping, Procreating, and Pissing people off: the job description of a louse.

It’s late on a Friday night, everyone’s tired and you can’t run to the store to pick up lice treatment. So you wash his hair in the shower with normal shampoo. But here’s the thing, lice are like those toddlers who cling to your leg with all their might while saying, “Uppie!.”  Lice hook onto the strands of hair, and can survive shampoo and towel drying, they’ve got bug-sized rain coats.  You still see the bugs in his hair.  He doesn’t seem all that perturbed so why should you, right? But deep down inside you want to scream and lord have mercy, every.single. part. of your body is itching.  You send him to bed and instruct him to stay in bed when he wakes up the next morning.  You promise to get up early and go to the store to buy some chemical lice killer. Instead of going right to bed you research online every single lice eliminating option.  Satisfied that you’ve got a game plan in place you fall asleep and proceed to dream of flesh eating bugs.

The drugstore shelves are filled with all sorts of lice killing products. They know people like you are totally freaking out and will do anything to eliminate those tiny buggers. You’re so desperate you buy a nit picking comb that somehow shocks the bugs to death, but shocks in a way that you (or child) is not harmed. Intriguing. At the checkout, you don’t make eye contact with the clerk at the counter.  The store clerk knows you or someone in your family has bugs. Jesus, it’s more humiliating than buying condoms for the first time. Back home, as you’re combing out bugs and bug eggs and bug sh*t you begin to think about the work ahead of you. You’ll have to bag up all his stuffed animals, and keep them in a bag for weeks so to suffocate the little vermin.  You’ll have to wash all the clothes. ALL. THE. CLOTHES. And bed sheets and pillowcases and blankets and…and…and… And the couch!? If you could hoist it thru the front door and light it on fire, you would.  Then it hits you…you could have lice too. Your husband could have lice. And your other child might very well be the proud owner of a head o’ bugs.  And oh no, you think of the neighborhood kids who all play at your house and vice versa and how they all huddle together over the ipad playing endless hours of minecraft. You’ve got to tell their parents. But you don’t want to…because having lice is embarrassing.  You craft a funny group text explaining that your child has lice and that they should probably check their kids too.  You hit send, and wait with baited breath hoping that they don’t defriend you or respond with a snarky comment.  But wait, what’s that you’re reading? THEIR KIDS HAVE LICE TOO!!  You’re actually delighted to hear that they too are experiencing Defcon level 10.  Misery loves company afterall.

For the next 48 hours you’re on high alert. You’re washing things, even though those things may have been washed the day before. You’re disinfecting surfaces.  You know that with all the extensive research you’ve done that the bugs can’t survive off of a host for more than 12 hours, but maybe these bugs are special bugs and you’re convinced that everyone and everything has them.  You even check out the dog a few times.  Your husband suggests he should check your hair on your head and in various “other” places.  You’re like, “how can he think about sex during this life crisis.”  But he’s right…he needs to check everywhere there is hair…and you’re wishing you were kinky and brave enough to have gotten that Brazilian wax a few weeks ago.  You decide that everyone in the family needs to be treated with the scalp melting shampoo (except the dog because apparently lice don’t like the taste of dog). You tell your 3 year old that she needs to be treated in case she has “buggies in her hair.”  She’s excited to be just like her big brother.  And since you can’t use that toxic shampoo more than once you use a homeopathic treatment for the days following. It’s called “I Hate Lice” and you got it from a mom friend who had an extra bottle of it from her experience with the bugs. You can’t meet up with said mom friend, so she leaves it in her mailbox in an unmarked bag. You pull up to her house, open the mailbox, look around to make sure no one else is watching you and grab the bag. You hurry back to your car, tear-ass up the block and head back to your home of infestation.

Days later you send both your kids to school with high hopes that all is ok. You’ve instructed them to not touch anyone else and to make sure they don’t rub heads with anyone (or share hats which is probably more likely than rubbing heads with someone else). Weird, but kids do weird things.  You’ve called and left a message with the school nurse reassuring her that you’ve killed all bugs and eliminated all eggs.  You’re all sheepish on the message but somehow you can’t stop rambling about how his hair is clean and how your family is clean and how the neighbors have lice too. On and on. And you haven’t even bothered to say anything to the preschool that your daughter attends because technically she didn’t have lice. But since you’re not really truly embarrassed you’re lucky enough to get an email from the school director of your 3 year olds school asking if your daughter has lice? Apparently your daughter is proud that she has lice and gleefully announces to the whole school, director and all, that she has “buggies in her hair.”  You reassure the director that she was treated as a preventative measure.  Your daughter is just so proud and proceeds to tell just about everyone she encounters on a daily basis that she has buggies in her hair.  You giggle nervously.  It’s just so awkward.

Evenings for the next week consist of dinner, dessert, and then nit picking like you’re a  whole family of monkeys. You’re all clear of bugs and nits but you’re just so traumatized by the whole experience that you’re always on high alert. Your skin continues to crawl. There’s no foreplay with your spouse either.  Nothing kills a libido faster than sitting on the edge of the tub at night combing thru each others hair.

It’s been two weeks since you saw bugs and you’ve survived the infestation.  But just barely.