ANYTHING BUT THAT!!!!

Every mother's worst nightmare!  Those little buggers that infest and are guaranteed to make me paranoid for the rest of my life.  Yes, I mean LICE!!!!  Let me give you a little background first.  About 14 months ago I had the ill conceived idea to cut my hair in a very short inverted bob.  Since then I have been growing it out, regretting that decision.  So after 14 months of not stepping into a hair salon, I decided that yesterday would finally be the day I do something I had been thinking about for years - give my extremely curly hair a brazilian blow out.  I was SO excited.  I spent three hours in the salon with various people primping and prodding me.  When I was all done, I had the long, silky, straight hair I had always dreamed of and was MUCH lighter in the wallet.

Within the hour I was sitting in the parking lot at my younger son's camp waiting for it to be dismissal time.  I was admiring my new hair in the mirror when I noticed some little whitish dots on my hairs.  It couldn't be lice, I mean I had spent all that time with people examining my head all morning.  Surely if I had lice SOMEONE would have noticed???!!!  I decided to have the camp director check my head for me.  I have known her for years and knew that as an educator, she must know what lice really looks like.  Sure enough, she said those dreadful words, "yep, it's lice."  I ran and got my son from his classroom and had her check his head - more lice!  And in an hour when the big kid got off his camp but, I knew I'd find lice there too.

Now, as much of a pain in the ass lice is - having to clean yourselves and all your belongings - I had an additional issue.  That pin straight hair I had spent so much time and money getting was not supposed to be wet for 48 hours!!!  I called the salon to let them know and the hairdressers response was not, "Oh, of course get treated and I will fix whatever damage you incur on the house.  I can't believe I didn't notice it when I spent 3 hours on your scalp!"  No, her response was, "Well you better not get it wet for two days!  Waiting with the lice isn't going to kill you."  ARE YOU KIDDING ME????  Of course I wasn't going to let it fester for two more days!!!

As far as treating the family, I took the easy way out.  I phoned a company called Hair Whisperers to come out and for $95/hr delouse us with a no return for 14 days guarantee.

So now I'm at home, almost 24 hrs later, still trying to put all our pillows, blankets, clothes, towels,and stuffed animals in the dryer to make sure I've killed those suckers.  Thankfully, my hair seems to have held up from the oils and the washing less than 12 hours after being straightened.  And, of course, I still feel itchy all over (even though I wasn't felling itchy before I knew I had the lice!).

I guess this is one of those parenting rights of passage.  I could have done without this one though!

Hilary