Olive Oil, Israelis and Covert Shampoo Missions

Today started out just like any other.

As usual, we woke up, had breakfast and walked the dog to the corner deli for my first cup of super-cheap, very low-brow coffee of the day (I won’t drink it any other way, especially if it’s in a mug and made at home or comes from a place with a green seal, if you know what I mean).  At the check out, I spotted something moving in my younger daughter’s hair, and yes, it was exactly what you think.  ’Tis the season for summer camp and vermin.  I am not ashamed to say that I panicked.  Now, let me tell you that I did not panic for the usual reasons.  I don’t believe that only “dirty” children get lice.  In fact, it’s usually those with the cleanest hair that get it, because the eggs adhere so easily to hair that is free of all traces of grease.  I also don’t feel that bugs on my child’s head are a reflection of my parenting skills.  It happens.

No, it’s a far more sinister reason: I am terrified of getting it myself.

Rushing home, my own scalp itching with phantom lice, I racked my brain for the right solution.  Baby oil– they can’t adhere to that.  Baby oil applied, fine tooth comb run through their hair, husband searching the internet, I pressed the panic button and sent texts to my most lice-educated and most empathetic friends.  Every one of them had a different answer.

“You know, Kim has a friend that was an expert Nitter for the Israeli army, but I just pulled them out of my own daughter’s hair and killed them with my fingers,” one friend told me.  Feeling a little sick to my stomach after that story, I pulled out the school directory looking for “Kim’s” number.  Of course, she’s in Europe for the rest of the summer and therefore unreachable.

“My friend had it so badly, she had to take down even the drapes and fumigate,” another friend told me.  Hurriedly, and even more panicked, I hung up with her while I looked for a paper bag to breathe into.

“We used that salon downtown,” still another friend said. “But you know, $700 later, we walked out with fluffy, gorgeous hair and a scalp-full of lice eggs.  It didn’t work”.  Ok, strike two.

“None of the American products work any more,” another mom told me.  ”Don’t worry, there is a woman who sells the best British brand at a premium.  I’ll get you her number.”  Number in hand, I dialed and waited until a woman with a thick, yet unidentified, accent answered the phone.  I explained the situation: “Who gave you this number?!” she hissed as though I was asking for the formula for a nuclear bomb.  I gave her the code name that I was given.  My friend told me that I was to tell her that another woman gave me the number, so I did.  I explained that I would like to buy two bottles of her wares, but she would not budge.  Two was one too many.  She would give me one, and it would be a lot of money.  Desperate, I agreed.

“I can meet you at 11:30.  Bring your lice comb so I can inspect it,” she barked. “So many of these cheap drugstore brands are insufficient.  I must look at it.”  She hung up then.  I realized that I had never gotten her name and that although she had given me her address so that I could meet her, she seemed reticent to see me.

So, $60 and a cab ride later, I am home with the product, getting ready to apply it to my kids.  I’m still covered in phantom lice of my own (don’t worry, my husband checked me thoroughly before leaving for work), and scratching like a maniac.  As it turns out, on the cab ride home, I spoke with the true lice authority in my life.  Her children had an outbreak this year, and she used all of the above remedies to no avail.  ”At the end of the day, all you need is a fine toothed comb, a bottle of olive oil and a shower cap”.

So, a day that was meant to be devoted to recipe development and writing will, instead, be spent delousing my children, first with the top secret Euro remedy and then with the special olive oil treatment.  Oh the life of a mother……