I hate them.
Hate is a strong word, reserved in my vocabulary for only the most evil of things - liars, thieves, child abusers... and bloddy head lice.
Before you cringe and turn quickly away lest you start subconsciously itching, take pity on me and mine.
And ask yourself - have you played with us lately?
Cos if you have, you'd better check your hair, and quick.
Sorry Gail. So sorry you will now have to trawl the streets of Hong Kong and find a Chinese Lice Killer, cos Miss Fab was crawling with the things.
Monday morning two minutes before she left for school she hands me some hair ties and a brush, asks me to give her pony tails.
As I part her hair into two bunches I see a suspicious white speck. I look closer. There's a bunch of them.
Horrors!
Instantly my scalp starts to crawl. You know the feeling?
What to do? What to do?
Suddenly I recall the Robicomb I bought a while back, just in case of an infestation.
This Nit-Zapper electrocutes the little buggers.
I drag it out, switch it on and start fine-combing her hair. There's a bunch of fat mother bugs.
I keep combing.
When the comb comes up clean after a while, I scrape her hair into two bunches and give her strict instructions not to take her hair down all day, just in case.
After I send her off I turn the zapper to my own head of hair. Horrors. Bugs in my hair too.
Ugh.
I hate those things!!!!
When the kids get home I Robicomb them all again. Dash has them too, for the first time in his life.
I fossick around in my bathroom cupboard til I find my trusty Parisidose nit shampoo, or whats left of it.
Just enough to double-dose all our hair. One by one I de-nit us thoroughly. And the next day I do it all again, just to be sure.
Now, it's just occurred to me that Grandma is probably having kittens as she reads this.
Sorry Grandma - and all those of you who have never had to experience this foul plague taking over your scalp, sucking your blood and making you itch - that's just life with kids as I shall demonstrate right now...
Miss Fab, now nit-free, walks in the door from school yesterday with a cheery smile.
"Mum guess what I told for news today?" she asks.
"What did you tell for news today sweetie?" I reply expecting it to be something about kittens or butterflies.
"I told my class I have nits!" she announces airily.
"Whaaaaat??? You told them you have nits? What did your teacher say? What did your class say? Did they tease you? make fun of you? Was your teacher upset?" I stammer.
"Nah. They were fine. But at the end of news Mr McKearney asked the class who else has nits... and lots of people put their hand up."
So you see people, We are fighting a losing battle with these bloodsucking parasites.
We can de-nit them, comb them, shampoo them, tie their hair in bunches, wash every item of bedding, every scarf and hat, coat and dressing gown just to be sure we got all the little blighters.
But then we send them off to school... and before we know it we'll have to repeat the whole bloddy process again.
Therefore I recommend having a bottle of Parisidose and a Robicomb in the bathroom cupboard at all times.
Cos you ust know you're gonna need them before too long.
*sigh*
