lice ovenbird Last night, a child that belongs to me was complaining of an itchy scalp. My investigation revealed irritation that looked like small bites around her hairline. I suspected lice but it was late and I didn't really want it to be true, so I sent her to bed and resolved to deal with it in the morning. I fell anxiously asleep and dreamed that I was picking through her hair with a rat tail comb. Some lice fell from her head onto the table and I got out a magnifying glass to confirm my diagnosis. Under magnification I found that the lice were tiny fat choristers, round like tweedledum and tweedledee, without necks to speak of. They weren't singing, but that's because I had rudely interrupted them. They were wearing little red coats and page boy pants. When I woke I picked through her hair for real and (for real) found lice, but they were not tiny men with red pudgy faces and a deep love for Bruckner. They were six legged hellions who had been feasting on blood and were about to make my day remarkably shitty. I skipped breakfast and went straight to the pharmacy. I wasn’t going to let them live a second longer than necessary. I hit every head in the house with permethrin and then spent the rest of the day washing every sheet and pillow case and towel, and quarantining stuffed animals and pillows in garbage bags. My washing machine and dryer have been running non stop since 9 am. It’s currently 7 pm and I still have a mountain of laundry. At one point in the morning I slid down the wall to the floor and sat there, my head itchy with either real or psychosomatic lice, and cried. As I was recovering, my daughter, who has recently been introduced to the world of somatic therapy, popped out of her room, hair still wet from her de-licing, and said, “I’m not really feeling anxious about the lice. They’re annoying, but they can’t really hurt me. I’ve decided to be more optimistic about things.” Then she disappeared into her room where I heard her trying to teach herself Mandarin so she could speak to one of her best friends in her native tongue. Sometimes nine year olds are unexpectedly wise teachers. I still have laundry to do. I’ve vacuumed every mattress in the house. I’ve massaged the heads of each of my immediate family members with poison. This morning I felt, for a moment, that I didn’t want to go on but the day pulled me through, offering a comforting voice from afar, an unexpected gift of home made cookies, and my daughter repeatedly asking for coffee in Chinese. 251130 ... nr i'm so sorry you had to deal with this. i remember having that when i was about 9 or 10; my best friend had it too, so there must have been an outbreak in our school. talk about a gross childhood rite of passage. 251130 ... ovenbird Thank you for the moral support nr! Sadly the things seem very resistant to dying. Live ones were found this morning and more crying occurred and the treatment was repeated and I'm really hoping they're all dead now. 251201 what's it to you? who go blather from