Thursday, April 13, 2006Nit PickingI returned from the opera trip to find my youngest son had head lice. This was not the re-entry celebration I had been anticipating.I worked one day and then went to pick him up. He told me the news. We spent all night washing and combing and picking nits. I took him to school on Tuesday: nits were found. And even though this is the place where I go off in excruciating detail about all the whacked out stupidity of my life, even this one defies full description. Overview: All day Tuesday we spent combing, cutting, standing in natural light, going through each strand of hair, being inspected by the school and failing... three times. Let me tell you some facts about hair. There are about 100,000 to 140,000 hairs on a human head. Some day sit down with a loved one and try to look at each one separately and critically. You will soon be overwhelmed by the magnitude of 100,000. Then think about what a typical house is worth in LA. A typical house is worth upwards of five heads of hair, if each hair was worth a dollar. Then think about what a dollar meant to you as a kid. Think about whether you'd stoop to pick up a dollar bill on the street if you saw one. Then think about a dollar bill for every hair on your head. And then multiply by five, six, seven, ten. There is a lot of complexity going on here. I went through Taylor's head maybe a dozen times. Strand by strand, making guessing games out of how many nits I'd find. Pulling the fuckers out. Having images of the "Cat in the Hat Comes Back" where every time I'd pull it out of his hair and wipe it on my jeans the bugger would start multiplying and then cover my legs, crawl up my body, infest me and everyone I'd ever talk to ever again. The pink goo moving away from the confines of the bathtub to encompass everything known to mankind. By Tuesday night I was confident I'd gotten the last of the buggers. By Wednedsay morning at 8:30, we were back on the street. Rejected again. I called Hair Fairies. My best friend at work had told me about them on Tuesday. They are a place that specializes in getting rid of these things. Expensive, she said, but guaranteeed. I heard of them about a day too late to help me on Tuesday but by Wednesday I was broken. I didn't care how much they cost. I didn't care where I had to drive. I went on their web site and saw an array of products that made me salivate with desire: metal combs with sharp pointed ends and about an atom's worth of space between each tine, creme rinses that dissolve the glue that the pernicious little motherfuckers use to attach to each hair shaft, sprays that will kill on contact, oils that will deter. Man, it was a commando's wet dream, that site. I called them up and begged them to tell me their products were available in their store. They were, they said. I will be there the second you open, I said. I need you, I said. I am a desperate woman. We blew out of town, my son and I, and headed for the Fairfax district. It was a nice day. I had learned that I wasn't squandering my entire vacation time doing this so I was no longer crying as I drove and traumatizing my child more than he already was. It was a better day. We were going to visit the professionals. Once there I decide to go the whole nine yards. Let them take care of everything. Do the screening and the treatment on Taylor. Check me out. Do it all. They have an opening in a couple of hours. Liberated and with a plan, Taylor and I enjoy a feast of Chinese and Japanese food at a corner place downstairs. Delicious. We converse and connect and I'm grateful for this time to hang out solo with my son. We wander up and down 3rd and look at the chi chi people. It's a lovely day. A weekday. I think to myself, not for the first time, that I really need to adjust my lifestyle. It's GOOD to be out in the world a bit. It's good to have a conversation with my son. Despite the circumstances, it's good to be here at the moment. We go back to Hair Fairies at the appointed time. Myra, the woman working on Taylor, combs through his hair with steady, firm strokes. I was so sure I'd gotten all of the little buggers, but she finds more. Like, way more. I'm a failure, I think, standing there. How could I be so lame? As all my ex's know, in a malicious and snotty way, if there's ANYTHING I should be good at, it should be nit picking. Ha ha ha ha ha. But it's true. I should've been good at this meticulous, ridiculous activity. But no. I suck. I have now missed two days of work and have opened myself up to a huge financial hit with this treatment and I suck. I truly and deeply suck. Then he's done and it's my turn to get checked. Just in case. I've got them too. Oh god nooooo I cry inside. Noooooooooo. Nooo noo noo noo no. Time, money, control, integrity... everything just flies out of my life, out the open door, down 3rd Avenue and out to sea. I have none of that left. No..... no... this can't be happening. Yes. I have them. So Nancy takes over and works on me. She pulls quite a few of them off my head. I'm wailing inside. How long have I had them, I ask her? Oh, 2 - 3 weeks she says, knowing the mystical algorithms of the nit-to-bug ratios with unnerving precision. Nooooo. No no no no no. After nine months of having only my head touch my own pillow and no one else's... after nine months of sweet solitude.... no.... now that I have JUST gotten out of my shell... I have this conversation ahead of me. Hi there, I'll start. How do you like hanging out with a woman with more jobs than time, and kids, and a house she can barely keep up, and oh yeah HEAD LICE??? Isn't this this simple, clean, lovely, unentangled partner YOU have always envisioned??? Oh, it's going to be a bad conversation. But. I learn some things about head lice that give me hope. 1) They cannot live away from the human head for more than 24 hours. This means I don't have to completely incinerate everything in my house. 2) They don't jump or fly. 3) I won't have to shave my head. That's about it. The only true thing that gives me hope is the fact that I won't have to nuke my house from space. The rest, truly and completely, sucks. Nancy, the Hair Fairy lady, and I have a great time, though. If I close my eyes, I can ALMOST imagine that the razor-toothed comb is an intricate device geared for pleasure rather than pest control, and I ALMOST can feel it as a massage. The lotions smell good. It is ALMOST a spa-like experience. I have an idea at one point. Head condoms. To avoid these embarrassing conversations, if all parties just wore head condoms we'd be fine. Really wide short ones. With the little pointy tip. I could sell them at Hair Fairies. I'd make a million. I fly the idea by Spencer when he calls in after school. (Yes, we were there all day.) He doesn't find it nearly as amusing as we ladies do. He suggests that maybe a real condom would stretch wide enough. I say, actually, no it wouldn't but I am intensely relieved to know that he doesn't know that. They fix us. We need to go back in on Saturday. But we're in good hands. I told them if I ever want to get rich, I'll franchise a Hair Fairies store myself. What a godsend. # posted by Katherine Doughtie Nolan @ 6:26 AM  
Comments: Kathy -- thank you for such a humorous slant to a very frustrating situation. Having gone through this hell with my son as well, I can't thank you enough for your blog. To know how tiny these little buggers are and to know how they tried to beat us is beyond comprehension. Also, let me know if you need a partner for your potential head condom business. Sounds like a great idea! Hugs, LoriAnn # posted by  LoriAnn's Blog : 6:34 PM
Hi Kathy-I live in Manhattan- I am going to go to Hair Fairies here tomorrow with my doaughter who is 27 - just back from the Middle East. I'm glad I found your comments on lice- although i'm stil freaked out. I guess I should go too though- just in case I got them from her. She has just spent 2 hours in the bathroom using RID - and a special comb trying to get rid of them. I doubt she got even half of them. any further advice would be most appreciated. Thank you. Deborah # posted by Unknown : 7:01 PM
Hi Deborah... on the off chance you get this... here's the scoop: do it. Do whatever you need to do to get rid of them. Pay the money. Do the follow up. It's expensive and stupid but not nearly as stupid as spending the next month staring at your comb and cleaning everything you've touched for the last six years. Hair Fairies are great -- but (one caveat) -- they claimed that their services would be covered by insurance and after six months of wrangling, I gave up on that possibility. New York may be different. (Funny enough, I'm currently in Manhattan myself. Wherever you are out there... I'm sending you good nit-free, un-lousy luck! let me know how it goes...) Best, Kathy
# posted by Katherine Doughtie Nolan : 7:15 PM
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