Lice’n Easy

   They say to really call yourself a New Yorker; you must have survived certain New York City traumas like the blackout of ‘03 or the transit strike of ‘05. Or Sandy. Or bed bugs. Or… lice.

It was Friday, and I was wrapping up at the gym when I got a call from Ms. Romie, the school nurse. “I’m calling with some news, but please don't worry because everything is fine.”  I was mid-exhalation when she finished her sentence. “Eva just has lice.”

JUST?! I tightened up all over again.

   Next thing you know, I was speeding a Citi bike through the streets of Brooklyn, dodging potholes and slipping in and out of traffic. When I arrived at the school, my daughter was sitting in the nurse's office with her hands nervously placed on her thighs, her backpack on her back, and tears in her eyes. “What happens now?” She asked, with a perturbed look on her face. I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss the crown of her head the way I always do, but… well, you know. So I put my arm on her shoulder instead and said, “We take care of it, baby.” Then I glanced at the nurse in utter disbelief that this would ever happen to us- What kind of mother am I not to notice my kid has lice? I am compulsive about cleaning, tweezing, picking, and prodding. How on earth was this happening to us?!

   I left the school with my daughter at arm's length and a purple Post-it note in the palm of my hand. The businesses Ms. Romie had given me all had catchy names like Lice-be-gone and Larger than Lice, which, I assume, are supposed to make you feel better about the fact that parasitic insects have taken up residence in your loved one's scalp. I wasn’t buying it.

   I dialed the first number, but no one answered, so I left a frantic voicemail asking them to call me back. The second place had an appointment at noon, so I took it and gave them my credit card number- no questions asked. I was about to hang up when the kind woman said, “It’s suite 605.” My next panicky call was to my office. “Two words,” I said. “Fucking. Lice,” and I could imagine everyone shaking their heads, either in dismay or disapproval.

   We arrived in Midtown, and I power-walked down the street with urgency and determination. “I’m scared,” my daughter said while trying to keep up with me. I told her not to worry and that this would be like a trip to the hairdresser. “Like a spa?” she wanted to know. “Maybe.”

   The building was old, the elevator buttons had no working bulbs, and an open padlock was hanging from the doorknob of suite 605. When I knocked, someone hollered, “It’s open,” from deep inside.

   This business looked nothing like a spa and everything like a run-down studio apartment of a twenty-something-year-old trying to make it in the Big Apple. The parquet floors, the random loveseat in the back, the turquoise microwave sitting on a crooked shelf- none of it was what I wanted.

   As I walked in, I saw traumatized parents sitting next to each other in a tiny hallway. Two children sat in mismatched salon chairs with baking soda and conditioner in their hair while numerous women combed them repeatedly with the finest tooth comb known to man. Another child sat getting their hair washed in a sink that butted up to a yellowish refrigerator that was surely as old as I am, and on the loveseat in the back sat a woman eating fried chicken. This was not a spa.

   To say that walking into that place was intimidating would be a gross understatement. Everyone knew why we were there, and while they were halfway to clean, we were walking in freshly contaminated. Their eyes were on us while their sitting knees turned sideways to give us room to walk without risking contact. “It’s our first time,” I whispered shamefully as I guided my daughter down the hall.

   Five minutes and one intake form later, my daughter and I were instructed to take a seat. “Not me, thanks,” I said, the way one turns down desert when on a diet, but one of the women who worked there said, “That is your daughter, correct?” I nodded. “Then yes, you too,” she said. I did as I was told.

   Three hours had passed, and my daughter and I had been shampooed, combed, and rinsed more times than I could count. Like the other parents, I was presented with a stack of paper towels to prove the success over the parasites. Finally, it was time for the heat treatment. My daughter and I sat in chairs on opposite sides of the room for another thirty minutes while a strange hairdryer-type contraption was repeatedly waved over us, starting at our scalps and ending at the split ends of our hair.

   Just like spending five hours at a spa, this cost me an arm and a leg, and when I finally looked in the only mirror they had- a sad and foggy sheet of glass on a busted frame, I looked terrible. My frizzy hair had no style or grace, and my face was flush from the heat, but I had never felt better than I did then. I was clean and clear, and calm. I exhaled and let it all go because it was over. We survived.

   My daughter and I left, and when the elevator came, a terrified mother and daughter walked out, looking for suite 605. “It’s our first time,” she said apologetically. “I completely understand,” I said, “And don’t worry, you are in great hands.”