LICE SUCK!

My wife called me toward the end of my work day a couple of days ago to tell me that my oldest daughter came home with lice.

First, let me say that I have never had lice.  Nor has anyone in my family, that I know of.  Yes, there is a stigma about lice--people seem to think that if you have lice then you are a dirty person or at least have poor hygiene habits.  That is not the case in our house.  My wife is super-anal about keeping not only the house but the kids, too, clean.  And I mean eat-off-the-floor clean!

So when I heard that my oldest daughter had lice, I was floored!

We're not sure where they came from, though we had just bought some clothes from a consignment sale and the girls were trying them on before they had a chance to get washed.  That's my guess...no telling who had the clothes before the sale.

Of course, school is another option.  So is the YMCA.  The kids spend a lot of time in both places.

Anyway, we'll probably never know where they came from.

But now that people have heard that we've had lice in our house, there are the stories about how long it has taken people to get rid of them.  Hopefully we were extreme enough to prevent them from coming back:

• Everything, and I mean everything, that has material/is soft in all of the kids' rooms was bagged, awaiting a deep cleaning by our new washing machine (which has a "Sanitize" setting).
• All rugs were rolled up and put in the garage.
• Lice spray was sprayed everywhere (mattresses, carpet, rugs, and so on).
• Lice-killing hair cream was applied (before we read about all the dangers of this product).
• Lice combs were used.
• Vaseline was applied to the hair to smother anything that survived the cream.
• Tons of Joy disk liquid and Gojo cream was later applied to try to get the Vaseline out!
• Pillow cases and sheets were slept in once before being bagged (to be cleaned by said new washer).

Luckily, I escaped un-infected.  Somehow.  I know that the girls get in my bed while I'm showering in the morning before we all head down for breakfast on school/work days, so I'm surprised that I didn't pick up one or more from that!

Anyway, I just wanted to vent that LICE SUCK!  And they are expensive, too!  The chemicals we've bought has set us back $150 or more.  We also chose this time to replace our existing washer and dryer.  Our washer was fine, except that it had lost a few screws and as a result it rattled like crazy during spin cycles.  Our dryer was on its last legs, however, and was in desperate need or replacing (and had been for months!).  So we got the front loading ones.

No, we technically didn't buy them because of the lice,  but we thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and replace them now, since we were planning on it anyway.  Thankfully we had the money to do so, too.

Long story short: I'll never think poorly of people who have lice again.  It can (and does) happen to anyone!