I’m trying to bring about a mass extinction event. A scorched earth obliteration. I want total and utter destruction. I plan to annihilate an entire species. I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it but here’s the thing: we have head lice in our household.
My youngest three children have long thick, lustrous hair. I myself have long, thick, lustrous hair. It gets us compliments. By the time I realised something was off, all four of our glossy heads were nurturing full colonies of parasitic invertebrates. Horrified, I sent my husband to the chemist.
STRONG STUFF ONLY
‘Get the strong stuff.’ I tell him. ‘We need the strong stuff. I don’t want any herbal nonsense. I don’t want to tickle these creatures with some formulation that is kind to the earth. I want complete and utter obliteration of the blighters. No plant remedies. No “all natural ingredients”. No essential oils. Essential poison please.’
Incidentally, they no longer sell the formulation we used 10 years ago when we last had headlice. That was really toxic stuff with a reassuringly clinical-sounding name. It came in a little brown jar and lathered into your hair. You had to sit in the fumes with a showercap on for several episodes of Gilmore Girls before rinsing it off again. Has it been outlawed? Because it is fatal to insects? What is the deal?
The bottle my husband brings home has a picture of a daisy on the logo. I don’t want daisies. I want death. Still, I get to work lathering heads. I wrap the wet hair up in reusable shopping bags and play an episode of Miraculous! (‘Miracu-louse’?). I leave the stuff in for twice the recommended time, just to be sure. I wash the hair out and change the bedding and notify the school. I comb out everyone’s hair with a nit comb.
TIGHT BRAIDS WANTED
In the morning I need to braid their hair tightly so that they don’t get re-infested. I’m not great at little-girl hairstyles. I can manage a high ponytail, a low ponytail, a headband and a ‘bun’. Except my ‘bun’ isn’t really a ‘bun’. It’s not one of those neat twisty hairstyles all pinned down with bobby pins. My ‘bun’ is just a ponytail that got stuck halfway.
By the end of the day, the girls’s hair has worked itself free of all restraints. I watch as they race about the playground and hug their friends, hair streaming all around.
As we walk up the hill, I see a nit in Penny’s hair. It is right there on her part. I want to grab it and murder it with my bare hands, But there are other parents around. I don’t want them to know that we’re The Nit Family. By the time the coast is clear, Mickey Louse is nowhere to be seen.
That night, I treat everyone’s hair again. Afterwards, I comb out a louse. It is still very much alive. It wriggles and stretches and looks up at me like it has enjoyed its spa treatment and is all ready to lay more eggs in its rejuvenated state. I speak to the chemist. It turns out there is a pill we can get from the doctors. There’s been a pill this whole time? I make the appointment right away.
WHY?
‘Why did God make headlice?’ Pippi asks me, as I methodically comb her hair. ‘I don’t know, darling.’ I say. And I don’t. But somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder. Maybe some day I’ll forget the bone-tiredness and frustration. Maybe some day I’ll remember only the weight of her small body on my lap, the solidarity of our matching shower caps, the intimacy of meticulous grooming.
Or maybe I’ve just got high on a potent cocktail of ovicidal fumes. Or maybe both. I’m not one to nit-pick.
Kate Moriarty is a freelance columnist, author and reviewer. Under Kate Solly, her novel Tuesday Evenings with the Copeton Craft Resistance is available now.