A Visit from Cousin Nit

The message light was glowing when I got back from coffee early Wednesday morning. It was daycare.

“We think Sarah has head lice. We need you to pick her up right away.”

What a way to ruin what was shaping up to be a perfect workday! I had a particularly odious meeting get canceled, and it looked like I’d be able to snuggle up with Word and Visio all day long while I worked on internet security use cases. OK, I know to most of you, that last sentence made no sense. But to a technical writer, it was going to be a day of pure creative, productive bliss.

Damn lice.

Hop the bus. Pick up the girls. Confirm the lice. Head to SuperTarget for supplies. And then the marathon cleaning extravaganza began. Kids, me, clothing, toys, dolls. I check out clean, everything else gets a thorough scrubbing or set up for a six week bagging. Mass laundering begins.

24 hrs. post louse, John comes home from a conference. I have to check him out. I feel like a gorilla at the zoo, checking over his (sparse) hair. He checks out OK. Back to the laundry.

48 hrs. post louse, I’ve done 13 large, hot water dependent loads of laundry. There are three more large contractor garbage bags full of things to be washed. Rachel finally checks out clean. Sarah still has micro-louse crap in her hair. Cries when I comb her out. Cries when I wonder aloud if I should get her an orphanage hair cut (with our hairdresser’s blessing). Cries because she is missing her dolls. Cries because we call her Cousin Nit. She is miserable.

**Sidebar** During the comb out, at times she looks like Cousin It from The Addams Family. I said “Cousin It”. Rachel thought I said “Cousin Nit”. Rachel runs around the deck yelling “Cousin Nit! Cousin Nit! Cousin Nit!”
**End Sidebar**

No clue where these things came from. I think this is another lawn crapping event from on high.

My life is constant battle with the washing machine and dryer. I’m up to 15 complete loads of laundry now. Tomorrow’s Saturday — I might finish it all, and the REGULAR laundry that accumulates day-by-day. Or I may collapse in a heap by my computer, and play Solitaire all day and write our the meme Kyra tagged me with.

In the meantime, it’s time to switch out another load.