The Pot and The Kettle

LICE! This week will go down in history as the week of the Great IMKA Lice Outbreak 2006. (IMKA is the semi-pseudonym for the semi-illustrious school in which I find a semi-modest employment, FYI)

I am not even sure if there was an actual reported case of lice (there was, but we were asked to be sensitive and discrete about it), but either way, you can learn a lot about a snooty community when something as dirty as the subject of lice surfaces.

So what have I learned about lice this week? I will tell you.
1. Clearly lice is not something you outgrow by the 5th grade.
2. Lice is a great a ice-breaker and will make even the quietest kid in class talk!
3. Lice infection does NOT immediately result in head shaving.
4. Lice is not quite the same as leprosy, so you shouldn't shun, snicker, or run from anyone suspected of hosting the lice. You should also not point and whisper at said host, unless you are a faculty member at the lunch table and another faculty member just doesn't know who the dirty child is.
5. There is an incredibly nasty little bugger out there called a chigger. If it is possible, it is actually worse than it sounds. It is a bug that literally burrows into your skin. Thank god, it is only indigenous to the South, at least according to Mrs. G. and Dr. H.
6. Thinking about lice will automatically make your head itch, and then you will be scared.
7. When talking about lice, you cannot help but glance into the hair of the people involved in the conversation.
8. The special lice shampoo could possibly cause dandruff.
9. Lice are attracted to clean hair. Really.