Okay… the last two days… where to begin, where to begin, where to begin…
Let’s start in a school bathroom.
Wait, no.
Let’s start before that.
Let’s start Thursday morning, as I was running around, tripping over laundry, thinking about laundry that needed to be done, looking at the giant pile next to my bed and worrying about dusting and all the shit I never do.
“Grrrrr…”
“What?” Mate asked.
I was almost in tears. “Would you believe I fantasize some day about taking an entire week off just to clean house?”
“Well,” Mate said, very practically, “just an hour a DAY. How’s that?”
I walked away, laughing hysterically, wondering where he thought that hour was going to come from. I mean, I had a lot to do that day! I was supposed to be the Art Docent for my son’s class, and then go grocery shopping, and I’m trying to make a deadline and then Zoomboy had dance.
And that is the day I started to have. I went to prepare to be Art Docent, reading up on imaginary animals and Chagall in the little volunteer prep room, with some guy who thought that listening to Rush Limbaugh rant about lazy minorities in a school with 50% Hispanic population was just a dandy thing to do. (I asked him to turn it off and claimed it broke my concentration. It did, but only because I was fighting the urge to throw the boombox at his head.) I finished my preparation, moved all my supplies to my son’s classroom, and then went to use the potty before I spent an hour running around helping kids paint imaginary animals.
While I was in the bathroom, which, by the by, shares a wall with my daughter’s classroom, my cell phone rang.
It was the school. (I shit you not!) Squish had lice.
O.O
Anyway, I washed up, walked out of the bathroom, and caught her walking out of her room as she was on her way to the office to wait for me. She was in tears– the other kids gave her a hard time about the cooties, and I reassured her that we’d gone through this seven years ago, right before she was born. Together, we walked up to the classroom where my stuff was and told Zoomboy’s teacher that we couldn’t make it to be Art Docent, and told her why, and then she did the oogie-oogie-three-steps-back, and Squish started to cry more.
We groomed Zoomboy for a moment behind a classroom, and we didn’t see anything crawling (although after the mayonnaise treatment he got after school we did find a few eggs) and I left him at school to take Squish home and start cootie-a-geddon at my house!
We stripped all the beds, vacuumed all the rugs, sprayed anything our head touched that couldn’t be thrown in the washing machines, bathed all the kids–including the nineteen year old with the 24″ melon and the uber thick, long curly hair– picked all the nits (well, not ALL of them since we didn’t pass inspection the next day) and swept all the floors and sanitized all the hairbrushes and… oh hells. I’m sure I missed something there somewhere. (Seven years ago, the only way we got rid of these little fuckers was to buy this uber-thick, oil-based gel that took a MONTH to wash out of Chicken’s hair. By the time it was out, everything next to her scalp had suffocated and died. I looked for that shit– I did– but apparently, they don’t make it anymore. Fuck.)
And the whole time I was cleaning the house and the children to the point of numbed brain exhaustion, I was thinking, well hell. This?
This was God saying, “You want to clean the house? Clean THIS, bitch! KAZAAM!”
Be careful what you ask for. Sayin’. And hope we pass inspection on Tuesday morning, or I may just have to shave us all bald!
dude. suckage.
my grandaughter went thru this twice last year…It is horrible. My daughter did learn that it strikes hair that is too clean. So hair products and hair spray around the na[e of the neck helps repel
The Kid got cooties for the first time at age 16, in the middle of the summer, and we *still* don't know where they came from.
I napalmed her head, then spent (I kid you not) SIX HOURS picking through her very long, very thick hair, removing (almost)every nit and dead louse.
Then I sent her to her mom with another bottle of nit napalm, and directions on how to use it, and when to recheck.
Mom didn't do it.
So, two weeks later The Kid comes into my room at midnight and awakens me from my slumber with… "There's something crawling in my hair."
Off we went to the 24 hour Walgreens. Another bomb blast of nit napalm (which isn't cheap, lemme tell you – at this point I'd spent close to $100 on three bottles!). Half a dozen crawling, not quite dead lice later, eight AM rolled around and I was on the phone to the egg donor – come get your kid and deal with the BUGS CRAWLING AROUND HER HEAD BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T DO IT THE FIRST TIME.
So, I feel your pain. I really feel your pain.
There is nothing worse. It blows.
UGH – I remember having to do that and it sucks. Fingers crossed for no more crawling things!
Hair dye helped a few years ago here. My son got a makeover — I let him choose the color — and in addition to the cootie-killer stuff, turning him into a blond helped both his spirits and the bug death toll. Good luck to you and yours!
So sorry. There is nothing worse.
Oh, blessings on you all! At least, when the squid says mean things about another kid (they all do sooner or later) you can remind her how bad she felt when people gave her a bad time about lice. Poor baby. And poor, poor you. Maybe you could drown 'em out with tequila applied internally.
And now my scalp itches.
I wonder if the lice are trying to rise up and take over the world. I've heard two or three people talking about their children over on this side of the country having lice in either their own kids or the kids' classroom.
And let's not start talking about the number of folks we have who come into our building saying, "we have bedbugs"…..
Ick! (hugs) Glad the house is clean. Sorry for the reason.
We have a business called nitpickers in our city. Basically a woman who comes to your house and for $40 an hour inspects and delouses the entire family and then gives you a checklist for the rest of the stuff. No chemicals and she is a miracle worker. Worth Every Penny!