Beating Around the Bush

A column with Cathy Stubbs

The last word

Words can be very powerful things.

Just a few well chosen words have the power to conjure up great feelings of fear and dread in most people.

For example, who doesn't shudder at the mere mention of the words Nuclear Holocaust, Global Warming, or World War?

But I defy anyone to come up with two words which can evoke more fear and horror than the two I heard uttered when my child's school called me recently.

The two simple words were: head lice.

Somehow our family had been spared the anguish of this scourge for almost a decade, but our luck came to an end with the Great Lice Infestation of 1997 which swept like the plague through my daughter's kindergarten class.

Not ever having experienced this horror before, I was utterly appalled when the school called to ask me to remove the child and her population of head lice from the premises.

It was absolutely no consolation to be reassured by my office colleagues that these creatures only liked clean hair - as though the prospect of head lice was less repugnant in clean hair than in dirty.

In fact it only deepened my horror, because I realised that my own clean locks must surely have been in contact with this six-year-old at some time in the previous week.

My imagination went in to over drive as I tried to suppress the idea that I too could be carrying around a population of unwelcome insects, right on my very own head. Suddenly, my scalp began to itch.

On my way to collect the child from school, I detoured to the chemist where I found the mother of one of my daughter's class mates scratching her scalp in front of the head lice display stand.

We decided to bypass any kind of the so called "natural" treatments. When it came to insects in your children's hair, strong chemicals are the only answer!

Next stop was the school where I found a sickbay full of distressed lice victims waiting for their parents.

When I got home, I was greeted by my house husband at the front door, who had been mowing the lawn and had not answered the school's phone calls.

"Here is your child, she has nits. Here are the chemicals needed to deal with it," I said.

"Goodbye, I have to go back to work."

The poor man's face was a picture of undisguised dread and revulsion, and like me, is instant reaction was to start scratching his head. I could tell that in the three years since he became Mr Mum, that this was easily the worst moment.

He sputtered and coughed and said he didn't know what to do. I said I didn't either, and he should read the bottle, and not forget to "do" his own hair, and that of all the other children.

My parting words were, "oh, by the way, you need to strip every bed in the house, wash all the sheets thoroughly, and probably all the blankets and doona's as well...and the brushes and combs, all their pyjamas and any clothes they've had on today."

When I got home later that day, there was a mountain of linen awaiting washing, and a very angry house husband sitting on the floor in the laundry trying to repair the washing machine which had blown up under the sheer weight of so much work.

The kids were not happy. Our ten-year-old wanted us to burn the house to the ground and start a new life in a town where no one knew us.

I know their father feels that if he never hears the words, head lice, again, it will be far too soon.

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