1984

One learns to observe to survive.  Say less, hear more.  Stare at your screen or your phone and just listen.  Listen while you talk.  Just listen.  People volunteer so much information.  But observe in a small town, in a small community, in a small system.  It becomes a blessing and a curse. 

I know nearly everyone.  I know all the staff, 100% of the students in my building and 80% of the students in the other building in our system, which houses grades K-6.  I know most of the parents and obviously plenty of the community.  I know the business owners and the older residents.  I know what people do, when they will retire, about their car-deer accidents, their extra jobs to put their kids through college and how much they paid for that sweater at Kohl's last weekend.  I know about their tomato crop this year and what the doctor said about their kid's learning disorder, along with every dirty deed committed during the divorce and how much laundry their kid does or leaves on the living room floor.  The information feels almost incestuous. 

I have a close friend in the other building with whom I mope and carry on about life; we do a pretty nice job of getting out the bad stuff and lifting each other up.  Because we aren't in each other's territory, we've never once gotten into a pissing match, which teachers are wont to do, and we both know that the other believes in God, family and country, kids first.  We share and compare notes and frustrations, compare how different situations are handled in our buildings, and give each other something we both need: love and honest advice.  Since I tend to overreact when there is a conflict and she tends to to underreact, she tells me when to let it go, and I tell her when to pipe up and state her case.  In addition to helping me keep my professional sanity, Beth also is a sort of spy for me for my own kids as they progress through her building.  She can subtly check on their lunchtime behavior, or if I hear strange stories about something that happened with a teacher, I can ask if such-and-such teacher would ever do "such a thing," or if such an action is typical.  It's an advantage every parent would die for.

All of this has come crashing together on many occasions, most recently related to the dreaded fall parasite, lice.  It's been a banner year for lice in the Little School, as we like to call the K-6 building.  My youngest son's teacher mentioned one afternoon that she was sorry for itching her hair so hard, but "I've wanted to do that all day.  I've got one that keeps coming back without the lice completely gone."  

Did she just say what I think she said? 

When did we change the policy where the kids kept getting sent home until they were nit-free?  The mother in me overtaking the professional, I had to ask.  "Well," she responded, "we can't just keep sending them home forever."

Yes.  Yes, you can.

My mind raced then and continues to do so now every time my son brings home the "lice letter" that means at least one child has been in the room that day with nits and/or actual lice.  I check, I re-check, my husband checks me.  Lice at our house could mean missing work, using sick days, missed wages for my husband. 

"Who was absent today?" I ask my seven year old casually.  He ponders and gives me his best guess.  "Who was absent yesterday?"  "Who was absent last week on Tuesday?" I may as well be asking.  Eventually I narrow the most repeating offender down to my older son's best friend's sister.  My older son's best friend keeps shaving his head.  My older son bugs me to have him over until I finally tell him why I'm resisting.  He understands.  Little son comes home one day to tell me that the lice are so bad that the room got exploded--what turns out to be a bug bomb.  A week passes, then, more lice letters.  His genteel and compassionate teacher tells the class a secret; he is not supposed to tell me.  He does tell me: lice like clean hair.  So he learns tolerance and inclusion.  Is that the proper phrase for this instance?   Either way, I like this secret and I love his teacher that much more.  I just don't want him going to Lice-a-pollooza everyday. 

Eventually I realize in a roundabout way that a co-worker has a lice problem in his house.  He is coming to work with his head shaved. Nothing too unusual except that it's unusually close-cropped and after an extended illness, his son shows up with a shaved head as well.  I have suspicions, but not concerns.  Until.  Until Beth tells me his daughter is coming to school with lice.  What should she do? 

This is what Beth and I call a "Really?" moment.  It's a moment when someone is so mean or dumb or unreasonable that one is left at a loss for words.  Beth wants to know what to do with the poor child, or better yet, with her mother, Lice-Lady.  A professional who works in a school and therefore understands the extent of what is wrong with sending a child with lice and/or nits to school and doing it anyway, and a mom who is acknowledging it and hugging her good-bye, long hair to long hair, in front of everyone...this all leaves Beth and I with only one thing left to say, "Really?" 

"Really?" in this case can mean a number of things, such as "What the fuck?"  "Is that the best you could do?"  "Are you shitting me?"  but most likely, "You're not really going to make me deal with this, are you, God or ______?" (Fill in the blank with name of boss/co-worker/friend/spouse/etc.) 

I gave Beth my best advice, but the problem was compounded for me the very next day when I was out of the classroom.  My substitute teacher was a woman with a gorgeous long mane of hair that stretches all the way down her back nearly to her waist.  It is big, curly, thick, beautiful hair and I am sure that she sat in my new red chair, the first new chair in my entire seventeen year career. 

You guessed it. 

Lice-Lady.