There may be nothing more mortifying for a young child then to be sent home with head lice. Many people label children with lice as dirty, but this isn’t always the case. Usually there is indeed one unclean household that is the cause of an outbreak, but most of the rest of the kids that get it from the first child usually have no idea where it came from, and it might have just meant they hung their coat in the wrong place. Head lice are tricky, as my family learned the hard way when I was young, and sometimes they are almost impossible to get rid of, even when they aren’t coming from your own house.

We never had a lot, but we always had enough, and we certainly had a nice house that my mother kept clean. She was picky about the house and she was picky about us. I don’t believe we would have ever gotten head lice when we were young had it not been for one particular family that didn’t seem to care. My brother was in second grade and there was a boy in his class that brought it to school. That boy infected almost his entire class with head lice in one day. In turn, my brother came home and gave it to me.

At the time, the school called to tell my mom that he had picked it up from a classmate, though they didn’t say which one. My mom treated him for head lice and then treated me. I was a problem, because I had long, curly hair and it took her forever to get through it. A few days later my brother came home with it again, and it came from the same kid. The rest of the parents were struggling to keep their children free of head lice while this poor little boy had parents that apparently didn’t care. They weren’t even treating him.

This went on for a few weeks until the other parents were furious. They told the little boy’s parents he was not allowed back in school until they were sure the head lice was gone. By this time, my head hurt from the treatments and I was more than willing to look up the parents of this boy and scratch their eyes out. Because of the severity of the problem, my mom had to end up using kerosene on our heads, and my beautiful hair had to be cut off. I can tell you almost twenty-five years later my hair has never been the same. Though I can’t blame the little boy who had the head lice, as he was just a little kid, I can certainly blame the parents who ignored the problem. May they itch forever.