So, apparently, I have lice.

By apparently, I mean that when I called Licenders, which is an actual place, where you can pay people to check your scalp and sell you lice shampoo OH MY GOD THIS IS ALREADY GETTING SO GROSS, they told me it would take 7-10 days for eggs to appear on my scalp so there was no point in getting it checked because nothing would be visible.

I’ll tell you what was visible the very next morning: a louse on my hairbrush.

A louse is the singular of lice.

THE MORE YOU KNOWWWWWWWWWWWW.

I never really gave this much thought. Until I saw one on my hairbrush.

I decided that I was not going to wait 7-10 days for the EGGS TO SHOW UP OH SICK SICK SICK so I went to Licenders anyway for them to check me out (conclusion: NOTHING) and bought lice murdering shampoo to try to get ahead of it.

And so, I have been shampoo-ing and painstakingly going through my entire head, picking out louses! OH WAIT. LICE. And eggs which apparently attach to the strands of your hair. I also tried the Cetaphil method which parodie suggested in my last post.

OH GOSH GUYS! THIS HAS BEEN REALLY FUN! Let me also say that I have a lot of hair. Like, a lot. Please see previous cockroach post. So you can imagine how much fun it is to go through bit by bit in order to find INSECTS WHO MIGHT WANT TO LAY THEIR EGGS INSIDE MY BRAIN OH MY GOD KILL ME NOW.

Ahem.

I realize that lice is not, like, a big deal.

Many of my friends were like oh gross! But also, didn’t you have them as a kid? Icky but not life threatening.

But no, you guys. I never had lice as a kid. (Chicken pox? Yes! Blood-sucking vermin? No!) And while it is definitely little more than an inconvenience, it is a super irritating annoying DISGUSTING inconvenience, particularly when you live in a New York City apartment without a washer/dryer so you have to haul all your bedding to the laundromat down the street over and over.

(Should I ever have children in this town, I will need two things: 1. A washer/dryer in my apartment and B.) one trillion dollars.)

So, yeah. I’m dealing with that. I’m especially irritated and uncomfortable because I’m getting on an airplane tomorrow to go to South Carolina and the last thing I want to do is infect an ENTIRE PLANE WITH LICE.

However, the experts reassured me that as long as I’m shampoo-ing and COMBING THEM OUT OF MY SCALP OH GOD I AM GONNA VOMIT, I should be fine. Contrary to what you may have heard, lice do not have the ability to jump or leap or cartwheel (WHAT? LAME.) out of your scalp onto another person’s. The only way you get it is to rub your head with someone else’s and they crawl over. (GAHHHHHHHHHH.)

Or, you know, share a 4+ hour car ride and a two night stay in a hotel with twin boys who have it, raging all over their little scalps who constantly want to kiss you and hug you and SHARE THEIR LICE WITH YOU.

So, um.

I’ve just been trying to reign in my natural impulse to rub my scalp with someone else’s. IT’S HARDER THAN YOU MIGHT THINK.

Anyway, that’s what’s up with me.

At 28 years old, I have my first case of head lice. I’m hoping tonight I don’t find any traces of it. If I do, I’m just going to set my head on fire or spend the weekend in a meat locker as I heard that lice cannot survive extreme cold or extreme heat.

(Roommate: This is why my hairbrush is in the freezer, SORRY! I also rolled around in your bed while you were at work for fun! YIPPEE!)

Um. What’s up for your weekend, guys? I’ll be in South Carolina at the beach, sharing my lice with some Southerners.

COME AND GET IT Y’ALL!

In the mean time, if I pluck a louse out of my head tonight, I’m going to attempt to teach it to cartwheel because…I think as a team, we could really go far.

FARE WELL.