Hi friends. As my classmates and I prepare to move our boxed-up lives back onto campus, I am reminded of the first few nights I spent in my sophomore year home. And I’m here to tell the story. The precautionary tale, to be more precise. Listen up, all you camp counselors and roommates of friends who are coming back with golden farmers’ tans, Chaco tans, and camp chants murmuring out of their mouths every second. This is something you need to hear.
Camp is such a beautiful thing. While the thought of outdoorsy adventures and no A/C never begged me closer, I recognize that for most children, the whimsical fun and delight Kanakuk or Pine Cove or New Life Ranch or any summer camp offers…is magical. It’s amazing how J uses a campsite–bringing together hundreds of college students who get paid next to nothing to spend entire summers living in teepees, sharing the Gospel with sweaty kiddos. That is the selfless Kingdom. Truly.
But you know who else agrees with me? Believes camp is a magical, beautiful place? Lice.
That’s right. I said it. Lice love camp.
In order to tell this story, I feel like I have to come clean too. I’ve had lice twice. I got it most likely from the first grade nap-time blanket tub, where my precious purple towel with “Adeline” monogrammed in hot pink was thrown next to my lice-infested classmate’s. We thought we had battled those demons successfully, only to be attacked again. The second time was worse; my family was in town, so all four baby cousins had to go through the lice combs, lice shampoo, quarantined misery. We learned during that time, as we laid across the kitchen counters, that lice are attracted to clean hair. Clean hair is easy for them to stick to; dirty, greasy hair isn’t. So it’s almost a compliment on your sanitary habits if you get lice!! (Not a compliment I want in that fashion, but whatever.)
So fast forward to August of 2017. My suitemates both spent a good chunk, if not all, of their summer at their respective summer camps. They came back tanned, braided, loud, and some with a newfound love for beading choker necklaces. Very camper chic. We all were so excited to squeeze each other’s necks, piling on beds and spilling all the beans on what happened that summer. Some of us kissed boys, some travelled the country, some were immersed in middle school camp drama, some got boyfriends (after promising she’d refrain from all boys, whatsoever LOL @gig)…and all the news had to be shared…in very close proximity to each other.
It started with suitemate #1 complaining about her itchy scalp. My mind immediately went to lice. But she denied it. She thought she was just being paranoid, and her scalp didn’t actually itch at all. But then suitemate #2 got an itchy scalp. But then they pushed that scare away, after meeting a kind elementary school teacher in the Sam’s Club bathroom, who overheard them talking about lice. She was kind enough to offer to check their hair, as she dealt with this often at school. “Y’all pretty girls are clean! Don’t worry.”
Ha.
So then, I had my sweet Emilee, an innocent freshman at the time, come over to see my room and help me hang up pictures. And as Em and I sat on my bed, talking, I hear suitemate #1 turn the shower water off.
“Addy…what does a lice bug look like?” she timidly shouted from the bathroom.
My heart sank. I’m sure Em felt sick in that moment, as she leaned up against my pillows. I immediately searched for a picture of lice on Google, mentally prepared myself for the worst, and headed for the bathroom. I opened the door to suitemate #1, wrapped in a towel, standing nervously in the corner of the shower, pointing to the wall. I got close enough, and yep. Satan had descended on our suite in the form of a blood-sucking, miniscule bug that goes by the name of Lice.
I remember immediately going through both my suitemates’ hair with my phone flashlight. And we found groves of them. At that point, Em was long gone. And crisis mode was activated. Surprisingly, I handled the situation with much more grace than I expected and my friends expected. Calmly, I removed all the pillows and blankets and comforter off of my bed, stuffing it into trash bags and duct taping them air-tight. We made a quick game plan after consulting Karrie Goodman–suitemate #1 and #2 were to go to Walmart and get all the lice-murdering weapons. At this point, I believe it was already past 11 p.m. But the thought of sleeping with bugs in their hair was too much to handle, so those sweet camp counselors tightly wound their hair into buns on top of their heads and left.
When they left, I began to throw all pieces of fabric they had maybe touched–shower mats, shower curtain, rugs–into trash bags, taking them downstairs to start laundry. Then I threw out my hair brush. As a precaution, I shut their bedroom door, realized it locked from the inside, and frantically had to wake up my RA to come unlock it for me, as I didn’t want one more stressful factor on their already heavy plates. I didn’t tell her we had lice. I was afraid we’d get kicked out. (Sorry Bethany…) And the last step of damage control? I quickly logged onto Snapchat and took down the picture I had posted on the OBU COMMUNITY SNAPCHAT STORY that jokingly announced my suitemates had lice to the entire student population. Before we realized it was NOT a joke.
Those sweet girls didn’t sleep that night. They sat in the lobby, combing meticulously through each other’s hair, applying lice treatment and periodically going to restart the washer on their bedding. They watched chick flicks until the sun came up.
My roommate and I both made a point to go see Nurse Molly and get our heads checked out, even after using lice shampoo with tea tree oil for at least two weeks after that terrible night. We pushed our suitemates to inform all the friends who had received a visit from them before we knew of their little hair-friends. And throughout the next week or so, I learned how to use the lice comb, starting from the scalp and threading all the way down, hearing the little zaps as it killed the bugs. We combed through every day for a while.
What was truly interesting and slightly sickening to me was the realization that lice is so common in campers and their counselors, that it often isn’t fully combatted, but left alone after a while. I had a friend who claimed she’d had lice for months, and she just couldn’t get rid of it, so she didn’t worry. I gave her a hand hold instead of a hug for a little bit after that.
So here’s my final pieces of advice, all you camp counselors—-
Check the nape of your neck for lice first. That’s where they like to live. If your head itches, check obsessively. Get second, third, fourth, fifth opinions.
Lice spread through fabric. They won’t jump from head to head, or crawl across a ceramic surface, so don’t freak out too It’s not contagious. I mean…my roommate and I never got lice. Lord knows why.
BUT as soon as you realize you may be infested with lice, EVERYBODY in your living situation needs to fight the battle in order to win the war. That means everybody needs to quarantine their throw pillows and blankets and hair brushes. Put unwashable things in a black trashbag, squeeze the air out, and duct tape the holes at the top. After two weeks, anything in the bag will be dead. That also means EVERYBODY needs to start using lice shampoo.
Fighting lice is a hard fight people! My suitemates did it right–they sucked it up and stayed up all night, realizing that they each needed to do the full lice treatment multiple times, wash all their belongings, and spend the money. It would have been selfish if they just slabbed on some mayonnaise and called it a day.
You have to have your girl gang to get through. Don’t shave your head. Your girls gotchu. Unless you have extremely curly, blonde hair….#rip.
I’m so serious about this friends. Just while writing this, I’ve started profusely itching my scalp in fear. This is a true story of true survivors. Will you be next? I pray not.
Xoxo. The Lice Exterminator, A
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