WARNING: reflex scratching will occur

My regular Wednesday night dinner mate came around as usual. We sat outside, gossiping and smoking way too much.

We talked, mostly, about her new job. She has recently gone from being a school-based counsellor to being (in my understanding) someone who tackles the causes (and finds the cures) of truancy in 16yos. She has gone from having a great deal of very close contact with the kids to a more supervisory role.

During the discussions, she deviated and asked me about the skin condition on my scalp (which has cleared up nicely, thanks for asking). She wanted to know it if was contagious. She'd had a really itchy head, to the extent of making it bleed with the scratching, which had been a major symptom of my psoriasis. Having established that it wasn't catching, she asked me to investigate.

She spent the rest of her visit wearing Gladwrap round her conditioner-drenched head.

Yep. Nits.

I'll wait while you stop shuddering.

It seems that her contact with those troubled kids was closer than I realised and left more than just an entry in her resume.

I never had nits as a kid and I wasn't aware of any of my friends being infested either. (We all got worms a lot but never nits.) My first experience was when my eldest daughter was in kindy. We went through about 6 month (and umpteen bottles of KP24) before the outbreak was controlled. Again, when I had two in high and two in primary, we went through an appalling outbreak. It was nearly two years before we managed to have an infestation free home. (The papers, at the time, were full of stories of everyone else being in the same predicament so I didn't feel too bad.)

My mate has lots of hair. It comes down to her waist and is the thickest hair I have ever seen. Her ponytail is as thick as my wrist.

It seems times have changed since my kids suffered and all the nasty chemicals are now considered unnecessary. The current control method is to smother the buggers with either oil (preferably Tea Tree) or conditioner. Following the Health Dept instructions, we anointed her scalp and hair liberally with conditioner. It took a whole 600ml bottle (but she smells good because all I had was Fructis).

I took embarrassing photos of her looking like Capt Condom to send to B (but not post here because that would be just too cruel as I have never figured out how to fuzz the faces out on pictures).

And I naively thought that my (outstanding) curry would be the highlight of the evening.