Lice, Anyone?
Slept 6pm to 10pm, put in my nine hours of nightshift lasting till 1 pm, went into town shopping with Dan - (which is like mass-suicide, except you're the only one) - and still going strong.
We went to Stadium, tried on hats, and I think that I came home with lice. Lice are scary. When a bug flies into the room, I generally tend to bolt to the bathroom and lock myself in, rocking for a couple hours before I realise what I must do. Call a freind.
But when you've got lice, it's a whole different scenario. You can run to the bathroom and lock yourself in for as long as you like, but the therapeutic value is less than, or equal to zilch.
The second time I got lice, it was from a dreadlocked fashion statement freind who called me two days after sleeping over at my place, to tell me that he might have left a few freinds over on my pillow. The sad thing was that he was right. The even sadder thing was that another dreadlocked freind had slept over the night before. And the saddest thing of all, was that this dreadlocked freind was a true Rastafarian. White, but a rastafarian all the same.
I called him over, invested 700 in lice removal, and drowned his head. The fumes made him keel over and puke in the sink twice. I wasn't looking forward to the follow-up treatment since he'd left with the comment "When you lie with the dogs, you wake up with fleas." I understood the flea part was a metaphor for lice, but the dog part hit a little too close too home for it to be funny.
He returned the following week, with a wild desperate look in his eyes that was mirrored only by that in mine. "Are they gone? Are they truly gone now?"
Well. What do you say in a situation like that, when the boy is almost in tears and threatening to cut off his hair and blame it on the bitch that gave him fleas? I lied.
"Well, your hair is pretty thick. but most of them must be dead. they have to be. Still, jsut in case, we should do the folllow up treatment." I poured the lice remover on the one louse I spotted making a mad dash for home to warn his battalions, who would laugh at his cowardly lousen fears and justifiably so.
I never called him again.
I did, however, see him a year later. His hair had almost grown back to a full two inches.
The first time I got lice, it was during primary school. Now before I go on, I have to tell you a little something about my parents. My father is the sort of man who never talks of his troubles. He will make a point of telling other people if they have pissed him off, but if something else is troubling him, he will remain silent. My mother, on the other hand, says nothing when hurt, but everything when depressed. My father is semi- hypochindriac, beleiving in the worst of all intestinal worlds, while my mother has more Candide-like tendencies when relating to physical diease. This amounts to two things - When you are tired, grumpy, sad, when you listen to music as you fall asleep, when you eat too much, when you eat too little, when you eat to survive, it is because you are lonely and sad. You should talk about it. If you slept a sound six hours instead of your regular seven, you are getting marched off to the psychiatrist. An untouched meatball, which, when it comes to my mother's cooking is not unusual, is cause for concern and the wringing of hands. My father never even really looks up from his morning papers. If however, you have a belly ache, my father springs out of his couch, and pulls you by the collar to the nearest doctor.
If my mother hears that you have lice, she will blame it on the new shampoo she's just bought. If you tell her that the teachers did in fact, examine your scalp and find the critters having massive orgies in your hair, then she calls it dandruff, and hurries outside to the store to change it to something milder.
This is the way it's always been.
And this is the way it shall stay.
And I might add here that this was a much funnier story when it was told earlier. NIN tends to sober you up.
We went to Stadium, tried on hats, and I think that I came home with lice. Lice are scary. When a bug flies into the room, I generally tend to bolt to the bathroom and lock myself in, rocking for a couple hours before I realise what I must do. Call a freind.
But when you've got lice, it's a whole different scenario. You can run to the bathroom and lock yourself in for as long as you like, but the therapeutic value is less than, or equal to zilch.
The second time I got lice, it was from a dreadlocked fashion statement freind who called me two days after sleeping over at my place, to tell me that he might have left a few freinds over on my pillow. The sad thing was that he was right. The even sadder thing was that another dreadlocked freind had slept over the night before. And the saddest thing of all, was that this dreadlocked freind was a true Rastafarian. White, but a rastafarian all the same.
I called him over, invested 700 in lice removal, and drowned his head. The fumes made him keel over and puke in the sink twice. I wasn't looking forward to the follow-up treatment since he'd left with the comment "When you lie with the dogs, you wake up with fleas." I understood the flea part was a metaphor for lice, but the dog part hit a little too close too home for it to be funny.
He returned the following week, with a wild desperate look in his eyes that was mirrored only by that in mine. "Are they gone? Are they truly gone now?"
Well. What do you say in a situation like that, when the boy is almost in tears and threatening to cut off his hair and blame it on the bitch that gave him fleas? I lied.
"Well, your hair is pretty thick. but most of them must be dead. they have to be. Still, jsut in case, we should do the folllow up treatment." I poured the lice remover on the one louse I spotted making a mad dash for home to warn his battalions, who would laugh at his cowardly lousen fears and justifiably so.
I never called him again.
I did, however, see him a year later. His hair had almost grown back to a full two inches.
The first time I got lice, it was during primary school. Now before I go on, I have to tell you a little something about my parents. My father is the sort of man who never talks of his troubles. He will make a point of telling other people if they have pissed him off, but if something else is troubling him, he will remain silent. My mother, on the other hand, says nothing when hurt, but everything when depressed. My father is semi- hypochindriac, beleiving in the worst of all intestinal worlds, while my mother has more Candide-like tendencies when relating to physical diease. This amounts to two things - When you are tired, grumpy, sad, when you listen to music as you fall asleep, when you eat too much, when you eat too little, when you eat to survive, it is because you are lonely and sad. You should talk about it. If you slept a sound six hours instead of your regular seven, you are getting marched off to the psychiatrist. An untouched meatball, which, when it comes to my mother's cooking is not unusual, is cause for concern and the wringing of hands. My father never even really looks up from his morning papers. If however, you have a belly ache, my father springs out of his couch, and pulls you by the collar to the nearest doctor.
If my mother hears that you have lice, she will blame it on the new shampoo she's just bought. If you tell her that the teachers did in fact, examine your scalp and find the critters having massive orgies in your hair, then she calls it dandruff, and hurries outside to the store to change it to something milder.
This is the way it's always been.
And this is the way it shall stay.
And I might add here that this was a much funnier story when it was told earlier. NIN tends to sober you up.
