Lice Niceties and a Muzzled Panther
Head lice inspector training isn’t as straightforward as it sounds, but then, if you’re looking for straightforward, you better not be looking near Berkeley. We parent volunteers are given head lice literature (“When Is a Nit Not a Nit?”) and told that we will be on call for the entire school year. At the first sign of lice we’re to drop what we’re doing and race over to inspect kindergarten heads.
Tallulah’s new school has a “no nit policy.” A single nit and a child must be sent home until he can prove himself nit-free. When I confess that I’m worried I won’t know a nit when I see one, the lady in charge reassures me, “there are going to be a lot of experienced nit-pickers on hand.”
No, the big concern isn’t the finding of nits, but what we say to 5-year-olds as we pick at their scalps. Last year, there was a scandal after one of the new nit-pickers, upon finishing a child’s head, said, “You look clean.” “It’s a problem,” said the instructor, “because the opposite of not having lice is not dirty.” And she’s right! The opposite of not having lice is lousy. But we can’t say “you’re not lousy” either. And so we sit around the table and watch a video that teaches us how to talk and feel about lice.
The real problem with the training is that it lasts only 90 minutes. Add that to even the most generous estimate of time I will actually spend picking nits and I can already see that the job won’t soak up the required parent volunteer hours.
When I get home, I scan the literature for painless volunteer hours and find nothing that doesn’t look like an effort. Finally, I stumble upon the school picnic -- known, for the school’s mascot, as the Panther Picnic. Rifling through the list of jobs a parent volunteer might do -- cooking, setting up, cleaning up -- it’s all clearly unpleasant. Then, at the bottom, an intriguing item: “Be The Panther.” I check the box beside it, but don’t for a moment imagine I’ll get the job. An assignment this cushy surely would have been nabbed by parents of older children, with greater standing.
An e-mail from someone named Per Wimmer, who wants me to write a book with him, about him. Something like this now appears in my in-box once a week. It’s one of the funny things about writing books for a living, that so many people who don’t write books for a living suspect that what you really want to do is drop whatever you’re doing to write a book with them, about them. Per Wimmer attaches a Web address to explain what makes him so desirable. The site describes a former investment banker from Denmark who is now devoting his life to adventure sports. Every activity that might kill him quickly, Per Wimmer apparently does with relish. I page down, looking for the hook, for that thing that makes Per Wimmer the stuff of literature. Then this:
“Per Wimmer’s story is a story about making dreams reality. Turning into reality what appears to be a far-fetched vision or goal that few believe in from the outset. Per’s ultimate space-related goal is to place the Danish flag, the ‘Dannebrog,’ on the Moon.”
Tabitha cooks. It’s a rare event, and when it happens dinner has an almost ceremonial air; even the children sense this and eat with a kind of halting reverence. Tonight Tabitha makes a fairly elaborate chicken recipe from a Martha Stewart book. Tallulah, as usual, pokes indifferently at exactly those items on her plate that her mother is most proud of and most hopes that she will eat. This is, of course, intended to drive her mother insane.
“Did you know that chicken was invented by someone who is in jail?” I say.
Tallulah perks up, “Really? A real jail with prisoners?” She’s forgotten entirely about making her mother unhappy.
“Yes,” I say. “With bars.” She tucks into the chicken and gobbles it right down.
A phone call from a woman who introduces herself as The Panther. She’s worn the suit for the last several years and is looking for help. “You sure you want to do this?” she asks, in the tone of a woman used to being stood up. Am I sure I want to do this? Two parent-volunteer hours to wear a panther suit? It’s money in the bank.
“Why wouldn’t I want to do it?” I ask. It’s very hot in the panther suit, she says, and you can’t see a thing. Plus, The Panther is forbidden from speaking -- lest the illusion that he is a panther, and not some parent dressed up as a panther, be shattered.
Oh, and one other thing: The eighth-grade boys make a sport out of taking the panther down. I’d do well to find a large male parent to serve as a bodyguard.
