I’m a Nit Picker

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

I’m here. I’m alive. I’m … somewhat functioning. But, we’ve been on vacation and I’ve been super productive at work and I just haven’t been able to find the time to get on here and tap out all the thoughts in my head. Plus also, vacation. You know.

Every year for the fourth of July my family has gone to the beach. And when I say every year, I mean that I have spent July fourth at the beach with my family almost every single year for thirty some years. There were some exceptions during law school and when I lived in Florida, but mostly, I was present and accountable at Ocean Isle Beach for the week of the fourth. This year was no exception… well, except for the fact that Banks went with us. You know. On a family vacation. Again. (See also: Butterflies and rainbows).

My brother in law had just gotten home from a week long trek to Guatemala to see Mayan ruins and tempt kidnappers with his American-ness, and because of that, sometime mid-week my sister walked into the house with a sheepish look on her face and her husband in tow, both sort of stammering and apologizing that … well… it seemed we had additional visitors at the beach house.

Guatemalan lice.

I don’t know about you, but I have never had any experiences with lice other than someone probably saying in elementary school “EW! You’re a girl! You have cooties! No… YOU HAVE LICE!” like it was some deep and terrifying secret illness that was just appalling and grotesque. So my first reaction was basically wide-eyed disbelief.

Lice? We don’t have no stinkin’ lice! I’m LAW MOMMA, dammit. I wash behind my ears and everything! How could we get through the rest of the week with FREAKING LICE?! I’d never wanted to get in a car and drive away so bad in my life. And my mom, who doesn’t really want to rock the boat, did her thing of saying my dad would be so upset… which everyone knows means that she’s totally worried about it but doesn’t want to say so.

While my sister and brother in law bought out the de-lousing section of the local CVS, I went through the motions of denying that any of this was actually happening. I mean, they have eggs called nits. NITS. That just sounds like the most disgusting thing ever. But despite my denial, I found myself approximately one hour later, bent over in a porch chair having my boyfriend scrub de-lousing shampoo into my hair. And inexplicably, we were laughing. All of us. Even my mom. Even my dad. All of us.

The neighbors had to be appalled. There were ten of us scrubbing shampoo into our hair. My sister joked that we should re-name our house “No Nit Pickin’” which my mother vehemently vetoed but the rest of us will probably secretly call the house from here on out. We scrubbed and combed and laughed. A lot.

Because when we get together, that’s just what we do in my family. We laugh.

We laugh about rainy days that eliminate beach fun.

We laugh about my brother in law’s inability to hum a tune, my brother’s insistence on being right about everything, my sister’s hippy nature, my tendency toward snobbery, my dad’s ability to tell the same joke seventeen times in three minutes, my mom’s chattering, and, now, Banks’ ability to fall asleep anywhere.

Because we’re family.

And yeah… we even and especially laugh about lice.