A friend called me recently to tell me a bug had just crawled out of her daughter’s hair. “It can’t be lice, though, right?” she said. She kept breaking into too-loud laughter. “It must be a giant gnat…?”
Welcome to lice denial. It happens, even to well-meaning and well-informed people.
Another friend convinced herself that her son was scratching his head so badly because he’d developed a shampoo allergy. When she saw little white dots in his hair, she figured maybe he hadn’t rinsed the shampoo out, and the dots were hardened bits of dried shampoo. No wonder he was itchy!
The next day all three of her kids came home from school early with their backpacks in Hefty bags.
Lice denial usually only happens once. On the other end of the Lice Reaction Spectrum lies lice hysteria. This can last a lifetime.
I knew I had lice hysteria when my tween daughter hugged her friend, and instead of finding it adorable I found myself shrieking, “DON’T TOUCH HEADS!” Or when I sat at a meeting, fighting an uncontrollable urge to perform spontaneous lice checks on my colleagues. Or when I picked up a left-behind hairband from the minivan seat with a pair of tongs, which I promptly boiled. The hairband I burned at the stake.
Once you’ve lived through Apocalouse Now, it’s hard to keep your cool.
The negotiating phase happens right after denial wears off. You agree to call the entire baseball team (those damn batting helmets!) if your husband will just call Bitchy Mom. Her super special snowflake daughter slept over before you realized your daughter’s scalp was moving, and She. Is. Not. Going. To. Be. Happy.
Negotiations quickly ramp up, and soon the stakes involve alcohol. Should you soak your child’s head with Agent Orange, or just soak your liver with wine? Should you take a sip of chardonnay after every nit you find? (This is probably not a good idea.) By the time you’ve combed through the heads of the each of your children and sent them to bed doused in olive oil, you’re ready to skip the alcohol altogether and just guzzle the Rid.
And then there’s anger and grief. I mostly just ricocheted between the two. It’s possible – possible! – that I may have shrieked at my husband. It’s likely that I sobbed into the washing machine. And then I may have shrieked at my husband again.
Now of course, I have lice resignation. It reminds me of a termite exterminator who came to treat our first house. He turned out to be the Obi Wan Kenobi of Terminex – warm, wise, and pithy.
He kindly ignored the weird gasping noises I kept making, as well as the fact that I could no longer blink.
“Ma’am,” he said gently. “There are two kinds of houses. Ones that have termites. And ones that are gonna get ‘em.”
After shepherding my kids through ten years of elementary school, I’ve concluded the same thing is true for children and lice. They either have ‘em, or they’re gonna get ‘em.
It’s almost winter hat season. Pass the olive oil.
