COLUMN: Of head lice and men
I hate bugs.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a George W. wiretap, a Box Elder bug or a case of the flu, I despise them all. But of all the bugs in the world, a tiny, nearly invisible creature wrecked my Man’s Day last Thursday.
My Thanksgiving was ruined by a case of head lice.
I wish this was just a sick joke to further my desperate attempts at humor, but alas, it was a reality.
My Man’s Day didn’t start out with lice. It began like all great Man’s Days: with an interception for a touchdown in the turkey bowl, watching the Lions surrender on national TV, the pillaging of a nearby village for turkey and a day of wheezing through my asthma attacks.
Things changed that afternoon.
My in-laws are foster parents, which means they provide free babysitting for deadbeat parents who can’t get off drugs long enough to do anything productive with their lives or the lives of their children. Because my mother-in-law has a heart softer than butter, she regularly takes in children for a few days or a few weeks. Why should Thanksgiving Day be any exception?
Early that morning, she got a call from the mother of a regular foster-care child who asked my mother-in-law if she could take care of her for the day. Not knowing how to say no – a common trait of the females in my wife’s family – we took in the child for the day.
Things were just fine until a few hours before dinner, when my mother-in-law discovered lice in this girl’s hair. Not just a couple of lice either. Her head was swarming with the devilish creatures.
Instantly, everyone went into panic mode. A hazmat team was called, the national guard was put on high alert and CNN broke away from their Obama worship for a minute to warn the country of this deadly pestilence.
Oh, and my mother-in-law made a visit to Walgreen’s to get some lice-killing shampoo. While she spent nearly two hours scrubbing this poor girl’s head raw, the rest of us spent the afternoon scouring the house to get rid of any bugs or eggs that may have been laid.
I never came closer than three feet to this girl but the rest of the day I kept scratching my head. I couldn’t tell if it was purely a psychological reaction or because I had contracted lice. Either way, I’m considering shaving my head, though I’m worried I’ll look like an obese Neo-Nazi.
By the time we all sat down to Thanksgiving dinner, the mood was solemn. Nobody said a word and we hardly made a dent in the massive feast my wife and mother-in-law prepared. Every time I brought a forkful of turkey to my mouth, I had terrible visions of lice squirming around and trying to jump onto my head. It was like a scene out of a bad ’80s movie, or the most recent “Twilight” film – take your pick.
Fortunately, everyone in the family escaped the head lice and we were able to enjoy the rest of Thanksgiving. But my weekend didn’t get any better from there.
While I wasn’t conscripted into the early morning Black Friday shopping force to go hunt for a stupid Mickey Mouse snowglobe at J. C. Penney Co., I still had a horrible experience on the road.
Late Friday night, as I was driving back to Logan, my battery light suddenly started flashing. It had been doing this for a while so I didn’t think anything of it. Then my lights started to dim and all the dials dropped to 0, even though the car was still moving. Zero miles an hour never felt so fast.
Just as I reached the dead center of Sardine Canyon, my car committed hari-kari and gave up the ghost. As I sat on the side of the road, waiting for my father-in-law to come bail us out, I kept hoping my ancient Honda would turn into a Transformer and come to life again. I think its name would be P.O.S.-atron.
Unfortunately, my Transformers dream didn’t materialize and I sat waiting for an hour until my in-laws arrived with a loaner vehicle: a white minivan. My Man’s Day humiliation was complete.
The worst part of it all was I realized that in five years, I could very well be driving a minivan. I will soon be part of the Mormon mafia with my very own Mormon Assault Vehicle. What a depressing way to end what should be the greatest holiday for men.
But I guess that’s the way life goes sometimes.
As this is the last column I will ever write for The Statesman, I figure I’d better take a moment to reflect on the three years of column-writing experience I have had.
First off, I appreciate my seven loyal readers – three of whom are imaginary – for reading, giving feedback and recognizing me around the city. It’s always tough as a columnist to know whether or not my writing makes someone smile, and when I receive e-mails from various people saying my column made them laugh, it makes all the pain of wracking my brain for something funny or bizarre worth it.
Of course, my columns haven’t always hit the mark. Often, my humor is only funny to me and most pubescent males who have been playing World of Warcraft for the past 36 hours. Occasionally I get angry letters from readers who completely misunderstood the point I was trying to make.
Which brings me to that point. My whole purpose in writing a humor column – be it Mr. Un-Athletic or this untitled column that I have always wanted to call Obsessions of Insanity – has been to help people take a lighter view on life.
Crap happens. It always has and it always will. You can choose to get upset about it or you can choose to look at things with a touch of humor. The latter is always more beneficial.
It’s far too easy to let school, work, friends and life in general get you down. It takes much more creativity to learn to look at the funny or awkward moments in life with a smile. People, in general, take themselves way too seriously and that leads to ulcers, Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” and Terrell Owens crying about his quarterback.
So, while I won’t be around any more to provide a weekly 1,000 words of unenlightened wisdom, make sure to take time each day to look at the world from a lighter point of view.
Seth Hawkins is a senior graduating in public relations who hopes his degree will get him somewhere. Questions and comments can be sent to him at seth.h@aggiemail.usu.edu.