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.