We almost made it.
The last week of school and we got the dreaded “Lice have been found in your child’s classroom.”
I was on high alert at the words “lice have” (plural) rather than “lice has” (singular).
Where? Had they been hiding in a small tent city somewhere next to the paint supplies and in the year end clean-up, someone disturbed their retreat? Or did one of the students randomly scratch a mosquito bite just above their collar bone and everyone just freaked out one last time before the summer break?
Please say this is just a scrap piece of paper Ellie. Please God when I turn this lice form over, may there be a series of X’s and O’s boards or a bunch of stick figures holding hands and watering a garden where the watering can is bigger than all of the stick people combined or a note asking someone to be your bff.
Hanna: Ellie! Did you know that form was in your bag? Why didn’t you get rid of it? Do you know Mom’s gonna comb our hair with that metal pick now? Thanks a lot Ellie!
Mwha ha ha ha ha ha
She’s right. I am.
You bring me the form, you get the comb.
But that does beg a rather important question, “Has Hanna been throwing out the lice forms?” Does this mean I should just introduce a bi-weekly, metal-combing ritual into our regular, bedtime routine? Snack, brush teeth, read books, lice scrape.
Ellie and I stood in the bathroom with the tiny, metal comb, lice form in hand just in case the words on the warning notice were written in trick ink and morphed into something other than “Your child might have bugs in her hair that eat her scalp and then feast on her brain.”
With each torturous, robotic inch forward glide through the hair, I would blur my eyes and stare at the tiny comb anywhere from thirty seconds to seventeen minutes. Then hold it up to the light. Then wipe it on a tissue and grab the magnifying glass so tiny, I need a magnifying glass to find the handle. I squint and blur my eyes some more until I see what might be a skin flake or under the wee magnifying glass, an entire box of Cheerios with two movie passes inside.
It doesn’t appear to be moving, nor does it appear to be an egg. I can’t read the word “LICE” on the tiny skin flake but I think it came from behind her ear and after years of research, I know that’s a hot spot for nit camps.
I google pictures of lice, nits, nats an exercise I’ve gone through dozens of times. If the FBI ever has to seize my computer (could happen) and decode my search history they will find the following top searches; 1. Chicken breast recipes. 2. Easy Chicken recipes. 3. Simple Chicken Recipes My Kids Will Eat. 4. Ridiculously Easy Chicken Recipes The Whole Family Will Love. 5. What do you do with water chestnuts? 6. Freezer burnt pork-chops. 7. What does head lice look like?
I’ve sent the skin flake to the lab. They love me there.
Hanna is busily making X’s and O’s boards on the back of Ellie’s lice form. Too little, too late.
I can’t wait for this school year to be over.
