04 March 2009

Itch, Itch.

How would you like to go into business as a "hair-whisperer," touting new and wonderful louse-killing products straight from your van? Apparently it's the most "recession-proof" business that you could imagine.

Moms are getting sick and tired of having their children all scrubbed up, de-lousified, combed and recombed, vacuuming the bugs, washing the sheets and pillows and other icky jobs, only to find their children re-infested with bugs for the fourth time. They'd rather outsource this joy, especially as the stigma of lousiness (you know, being louse-y, lousy, or whatever you want to call it) is going away.

I've just summarized the entire article, but go ahead and peek to see the extremes people go to to stay bug-free. I think the lady who invited the de-louser to her child's SLEEPOVER party to check everyone's hair is a bit nuts. Could you imagine being one of little Bobby's friends and hanging out in front of the Wii after the traditional pizza fest when this party event is announced? Poor ol' Bobby is going to have to hire a psychologist in later life to get over this trauma (note: another "recession-proof" business).

On his first day of kindergarten, Patrick brought home a note from the school nurse stating that head lice was found in his classroom. Turned out, it was the little girl with long hair who sat RIGHT NEXT to him.

Aw, come on. That's just nasty. Sending your kid to school with head lice on the first day of kindergarten? This family was very *interesting,* to say the least. Patrick's hair was very short and apparently lice don't like short hair.

Itch, itch.

"It is still hard to let go of the thought that [lice] is about being dirty," the article tells us. "But really, dirty hair doesn't get lice. Clean hair does."

THINK of all the money you would save just by letting your hair get dirty. The lice would go away and you wouldn't have to spend the $250 per kid average fee for this service. Which does not include washing pillowcases, vacuuming and the like.

My children and I have never gotten lice. I'm almost afraid to type that because it could happen to anyone and guess what might happen to us next week...? But I can't imagine that I would be driven nuts enough to pay $250 PER KID to get the lice gone. The whole family would cost about $2,000 and I'd still have to vacuum, sweep and do the washing?

That's a lot of money.

3 comments:

  1. You are lucky. The boys have stayed lice free but oh my! The girls. Have you ever tried delousing thick, waist length hair? No, you've got boys & the girl is a tad little to have so much hair just yet. Let's just say it involved a lot of time & tears but in the process I learn a really neat trick. Smother the kid's hair in conditioner. It smothers the lice, makes combing them out a breeze & reduces the knotting problem considerably. I used to get really ropeable because I always looked out for lice & followed proceedure but some families seemed to make it their life's work to pass them along as much as possible.

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  2. Ugh, lice. I literally have nightmares about them. The year Mollie was 7 she must have had them 10 times. She had long, thick, blonde hair all the way down her back and we used to sit out in the sun for hours combing those little darlings out. Finally, I made her get her hair cut into a bob and we de-loused every Sunday and Friday for a couple of months. It seemed to work.

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  3. Eew.. I've heard of mayonnaise as a treatment, but how much fun that is to get out of hair I can just imagine. I was reading on another blog that you can put something in your hair every time you bathe and lice hate it. Rosemary? Mint? Hm. Of course now that I want to pass the info along, I forget it. :]

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Non-troll comments always welcome! :)

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