Last Friday afternoon, I was told that five kids who share my daughter’s middle-school classroom had been infested with lice.

That night, my daughter was at a sleepover, my husband was on a fishing trip, my son was in bed and I started itching. I was sure I had lice and that my daughter was probably infesting her friend’s house.

It was midnight and I had no one around to look at my head. I have never had lice, nor have my children, so I didn’t really know what to do. Which is why I did what any sane, logical person would; I took my Ambien, poured half a bottle of apple cider vinegar on my head, covered it with a shower cap and a towel, then went to bed. See? Completely sane.

I woke up at 4:00am wondering how I had fallen asleep surrounded by apple cider vinegar stench. Thanks, Ambien! I showered, washed my hair a few times with the hottest water I could stand and dried it with the hottest setting on my dryer, then I changed my sheets.

Keep in mind, I had not seen a bug, a nit, a nothing. I’m proactive like that.

The next morning, I found out that my daughter was fine and I was without the slightest itch, so I declared myself a paranoid, lice-free woman. This whole scene? Is why I take Zoloft.

On Monday, when I was driving my son home after school, he told me that they had checked some kids for lice during the day, but he was upset they hadn’t checked him.

He said, “Mom, I don’t know why they didn’t check me! I wanted them to, but they told me to go back to my classroom!’

I looked at him in the rearview mirror. “That’s okay if they didn’t check you. I’m sure they only checked certain kids for a reason.”

Then I realized that I should have never explained why my bedroom reeked of vinegar on Saturday morning when he said,  “Well, they wouldn’t listen to me…I even told them that you have lice!”

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