34. Lice

In third grade I got lice. It wasn't the first time. It was the yearly, mandatory, school-wide check. They herded us all into the cafeteria and a bunch of old ladies with smelly rubber gloves on picked through our hair with a tongue depressors and combs. I'm sure they were very hygienic about and and used different sticks on each kid and changed gloves often, but I have to wonder if some of us got our lice from the kid before us.

They didn't tell us immediately that we had lice. Nope. They sent us all back to class, liceheads and cleanheads alike. Then I guess they called our parents because when I got home mom was ready for me. My older brother and sister (cleanheads both) were each given a cookie and sent outside to play. They didn't even have to finish their homework, first. Did I get a cookie? No. Did I get to go play outside? No. I got shepherded into the bathtub, stripped of my delicate privacy, and tossed into the scalding shower. It was as if she planned to boil the lice to death.

Then she took the sharpest comb ever made and created furrows in my scalp. It's a wonder the lice didn't think she was getting their field ready to harvest. For hours, I sat their, the victim to my mother's torturous devices - the comb of knives, the shampoo that stunk of skunks and cat litter, and the foaming rinse that burned like carbonated lava as it flowed down my back. 

Meanwhile, brother and sister had moved on to watching The Lion King (my absolute favorite movie, of course) with the toddler and the baby. 

When mom was finally convinced she could do no more on her quest to kill the insidious insects (and I was convinced I was going to be bald for the rest of my life), I thought I was free at last. But no. Life just isn't fair like that. That tiny, shimmering ray of hope was quashed when I tried to run out of the torture chamber to catch the last strains of Can You Feel The Love Tonight but was quickly and firmly blocked by the hulking form of dad. It wasn't safe for the baby for me to be near him with the lingering fumes of my new radioactive shampoo.

Are you kidding me, people? The injustice of it all! So while all of my siblings got to enjoy a delicious bag of buttery popcorn watchingthe mighty and heroic Simba defeat the evil Scar, I had toast. Why toast? Because dad couldn't stand the smell of my head long enough to supply me with real food. So I sat there. In the kitchen. By myself. Until bedtime.

The next day was worse. I woke up to go to school and was told I 'd have to stay home so I didn't spread the lice. Perfect! No school! I could watch movies and play with mom and make cookies! It was going to be awesome! But then, I had forgotten toddler and baby. After another session in the torture chamber before the drool bags woke up I spent the day in my room, working on a packet of make-up work my teacher had cleverly snuck into my backpack while I wasn't looking. It was like I was a prisoner in my own home. Mom finally released me during naptime. It was a glorious 20 minutes. Then toddler decided he hated me and refused to sleep any longer and so was banished to my cell once again. Another trip to the torture chamber that night ended with one very hysterical third-grader. 

Three days later I was declared "safe" again and released from my lowly life as a parasite's paradise.

The moral of the story is this: never play dress up with a girl who smells like pee.