Carol’s Column

A louse in time saves nine

THE mask slipped off my nose and caught my top chin. I couldn't breathe.

"Die, you loathsome creatures," I mumbled through gritted teeth. A deep breath, then, with a steady hand I pushed the plunger down.

Immediately, the room was filled with a foul and pungent odour. I couldn't see my ring-finger through the thick, evil mist.

Tears streaming from my eyes, I crawled on my belly towards the direction of the door. My lungs were bursting when I flung it open and screamed: "I got them. They're all dead."

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I collapsed, exhausted beside a pair of battered veldskoens with reinforced toes from which my husband sprouted. "You're mad," he said, "Anyone would think you were fighting the might of the Russian invasion in Afghanistan, not just a few old lice."

I was speechless. "Do you know what chaos those few old lice have caused in this house, in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, in fact in the whole of South Africa?

"Do you know that the whole country has been scratching for the past year and that the louse count grows daily? If we're not careful, lice will take over the world."

I shut my eyes and shuddered, remembering when it had started almost a year ago.

Ralph brought home a newsletter from the school informing us that there had been an outbreak of lice. It asked parents to inspect the hirsute heads of their offspring for creepy crawlies.

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"You've gotta use a sex shampoo to get rid of the lice," said Ralph.

I read the note. "Ralph, prophylactic isn't always used with sex.

"Aw, Ma, I know. And that's when you can really get into trouble," he said, with the wisdom of his 11 years. End of the conversation.

We received a weekly bulletin from the school informing us about the progress of the lice which were growing stronger and longer by the day. They were of course helped on their way by the school photographer who brushed the entire school with the same brush to make the heads look kempt.

Then there was the health visitor who did a head-to-head check for lice and distributed the little creatures further with her nails.

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With tens of thousands of other parents throughout the country, we searched home-heads daily. The Lice Watchers' Society of the Northern Suburbs was formed by one enterprising mother who offered an on-the-spot check for a fee. She was able to retire to the Bahamas in three months. There was no doubt that lice were rife.

Of course, all along I knew we wouldn't catch lice. I mean, lice were for dirty people and I knew the boys bathed at least once a week.

One day in June, I checked Nicky's head, her six-year-old hair, the pride and joy of the family. Long and dark, it hung to her waist in hairy abandon. As I caught it up in bunches, I noticed it looked distinctly dusty. There were tiny white specks which glittered in the sunlight. Quite pretty they looked.

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The family gathered around. "Well they're not lice," I commented with authority. "They don't have legs and they don't crawl."

"Perhaps it's a new form of dandruff?" said Barry helpfully.

That evening, the Mary Tyler-Moore show was drowned out by the sound of scratching. Everyone in the family seemed to have an itchy scalp. Strange, I thought to myself as I made tea for the three dogs.

Eventually I phoned a friend. We pulled Johannesburg to pieces for a brief 50 minutes and then I asked the million-dollar question: "What actually do lice look like?" I knew that a third cousin of her mother's had the dread lurgy.

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"You can't really see them," she replied. "They're totally transparent. It's the little nits you have to look out for."

"Nits?" I echoed.

"Yes, pretty little things they are. They look like miniature white tear drops and they glitter in the sun. The whole effect is rather gay. But they're difficult to remove from the hair. You literally have to pull them out one by one."

In the lounge, I watched the nits watching television. All four kids were scratching away. There was no doubt, lice had struck the Lazars in their prime.

The following months were a nightmare. We tried everything from the prophylactic shampoo to dousing heads in petrol. And still they flourished.

It seemed the Johannesburg lice were a particularly resilient breed; immune to everything.

The kids were thrilled. Jamie confided they'd all been a little out of things before. Nicky phoned her Cape Town granny with the news that she had millions of lice, the most in the family. My mother, originally of clean German stock, fainted when she heard. She placed a notice in the local paper disclaiming any responsibility for her grandchildren's affliction.

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And then things changed. One afternoon I found my oldest son sitting disconsolately on the edge of the bed.

"It's too terrible," he said. "I'm the only one in the school without lice."

As our lice faded, so did our friends. We no longer shared the new status symbol with them. Eventually, things became so unhappy, that we considered leaving the country. There was no doubt that we'd been abandoned by the lice.

Until last Tuesday when I noticed one solitary louse swinging gently from the end of one of Nicky's hairs.

I explained this to my husband as he stood there, unrelenting in his veldskoens.

"So why are you spraying the house and killing all potential lice?" he asked. An intelligent question under the circumstances.

"It's either them or me. I can't bear to go through the whole traumatic affair again," I wailed. "I just can't take the rejection. I think I'm going to crack."

There was silence as he scratched his head.

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