The Facts of Lice

Alison had a Brownie backyard camp out last night. It's the last event for the troop this school year, and all the girls were excited. They had an option to bring sleeping bags, but it was only a three-hour-tour, so we decided to leave Ali's at home.

Of course when we got there, everyone else had a sleeping bag already in the tent, but Ali didn't seem to care. We were on 'smores supply duty but I was not necessary to the equation, so I slunk away home to recover from a great quarterly work trip out at the Speedway and from bike-to-work day.

I set alarms in case I passed out from either the muscle fatigue or beer consumption (Jeff had poker night) and I actually got back to the party a little early. I went in anyway, and was greeted by three little Brownies (none my own) with huge eyes and an even bigger tale to tell: "Three of the girls have lice," they reported, pointing to a corner of the house where three other bandana-ed girls lurked.

I never actually learned which of the three were stricken. I'm sure they told me, but it took me only a little while to learn the bandanas were not the scarlet letters of lice. I may have staggered a little bit.

"Seriously? Um, where's Ali," I ask, wondering how I'd just walked past two Brownie moms without hearing even the whisper of lice, and how I hadn't gotten a phone call for early dismissal.

"Yeah. One of them starting itching their head and my mom looked at her and then they started looking at everyone," a huge-eyed Brownie tells me.

"Where's Alison?" I ask.

"Oh, she didn't get the lice. She doesn't play on the Allisonville team," I'm told.

So I learn from the little ones that the lice may be traced back to a softball team and shared helmets.

I collect Ali, send up a prayer of thanks that she ditched softball, that it wasn't a sleepover and that she didn't take her sleeping bag. I make a beeline for the door. In some small defense of the Brownie moms, both seemed to be a little bit in shock, mostly the hostess who still had some lice carriers still in her fully carpeted home. The night had started up beautiful, but it rained, and I'm sure the girls spent most of the time inside...

On the way home, driving fast and wondering if I have a magnifying glass, I ask Alison about it. She was unconcerned.

"Mom, I read The Facts of Lice every time I go to the nurse's office," she said. "It keeps me entertained while I wait."

"The facts of what?"

"The Facts of Lice. It's on the wall. First I read all about that and then I read about all the parts of the human body and the skeleton," she said.

"Does your head itch?"

"No, mom. I don't have lice," she said. "It was the other girls. But you know, my head does itch sometimes and then I scratch it like this," she said, demonstrating. "I had a tick in my hair once. I think that's why I itch sometimes."

I don't care about the tick. She was 3 then. I'm focused on their smaller, more evil, and more potentially present cousins.

"Did you play much with the girls who have lice? Did you go into the tent and lay around on the sleeping bags?"

Even as I said the words, I felt terrible. Clearly I am no Mother Theresa. I don't know what I would have done had I been hosting. I hope I would have gone to the little lice-ridden girls and helped them, but I'm not sure. I know I wouldn't want to be one of them -- segregated and pointed at while tiny little bugs started keeping house in my hair.

"No. I didn't even really notice," she said. "I was playing with Maria and Sarah."

I slowed down a little.

By the time we got home, I was mostly calm. I went through her hair and saw nary a bug.

"Do you see any small, white balls?" asked Alison, hunched over on a bar stool under the kitchen light.

"No," I say, wondering if she's again lost focus on the Great Search for Lice.

"Good. Those are the eggs," she said, apparently reciting from her Facts of Lice. "The lice will be kind of yellowish-golden with huge teeth."

I swallowed hard but kept looking. "What else do you know about lice," I ask.

"Oh, not much," she said. "You have to get special shampoo to get rid of them if you find them," she said calmly.

So far, there's been no hint of lice. We're probably going to get some shampoo just as a pre-emptive measure.

But I'm on guard. And I can't get the theme song from "The Facts of Life" TV show out of my head.