Thursday 10 March 2011

A nitty problem

As the sun made a rare appearance from behind the clouds today, it struck my boys' fair head, but instead of drinking in the beauty of his burnished curls I noticed a smattering of those tell tale little white eggs audaciously clinging to his golden skeins. 'Bastards' I hissed. I hate nits with a passion. Just thinking about them has me digging my nails into my scalp in a frenzy of scratching.

They have been doing the rounds at school ever since he started, but by keeping his hair as short as possible without straying into skinhead territory, so far we have avoided the dreaded head lice. This time we are not so lucky, and the evil pests have decided to colonise my sons' hair.

All I can say is foolish move dear louse, for this is not a welcoming house. Within moments of spotting those nasty nits we were in the car and on our way to Boots to find sufficient weaponry to wreak instant annihilation. I left laden with evil smelling potions and sharp fanged combs. There was no way this encroachment could be allowed to continue and now I an arsenal to fight back.

As soon as we got home my son was immersed into a bath like a sheep dip to have his hair combed to within an inch of its life with the highly recommended Nitty Gritty comb, which I am assured is the best way to remove the blighters. Naturally this was not enough for me, as once I had combed his hair to a sleek matinee idol sheen, I then slathered it with Nelson's Nice 'n Clear, which by the smell alone could kill from 50 paces.

I am hoping that my zero tolerance approach will have beaten those pesky pests into submission, but if not I will have to bring on the big guns and spray my childrens' heads with noxious pesticides. None of your hippy dippy homeopathy for me, I will be quoting Apocalyse Now as I Napalm those lice to kingdom come.

I am just grateful I have boys,. I still have painful memories of my aunt wrenching a nit comb through my unfeasibly thick, long hair when I caught nits from my cousins one summer. I swear she took sadistic pleasure in yanking thick sections of hair right out of my head. At least my sons short back and sides only take seconds to comb through, though that doesn't seem to have cut down on the amount of tears shed during the process.

Fingers crossed my opening salvo will have been savage enough to rid this house of the pestilence visited up on it, as woe betide any louse that fails to heed this warning.

3 comments:

  1. I never had nits as a child and have always considered myself lucky. But I caught nits from my son about 5 years ago. The sensation still plagues me today. In Los Angeles, there's a special de-louse your kid hair salon for those unfortunate instances - and I believe it costs about 80 dollars (55 pounds) but I could be wrong.

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  2. I sooo still have nightmares about having nits as a child. Not only was I a redhead ( bad enough)but it was naturally curly too (don't worry I'm almost over it!). You only have to mention nit comb and I break out in a sweat. Thankfully I have boys but in this day and age with longer hair for the boys ( unfortunately no short back and sides in this house- much to my husbands disgust)its becoming more of a problem. And although the nit comb ( sweating again) has its very occasional use its no where near the nightmare it used to be....for me anyway.

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  3. I still remember the day my son calmly announced he had insects in his hair and that they had fallen out over "Miss" while he was reading. Oh the walk/run of shame into the chemist , the whispered questions about what was suitable to kill the little blighters and then the telling to friends that they may need to check thier own little darlings. I know its easy to say it could happen to anyone but just thinking about it all these years later still brings me out in a cold sweat as I scratch my head.

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