the "joys" or "perks" of being an educator

On Wednesday morning I was informed by my principal that one of the little girls in my class has head lice. Yup, that's right.... HEAD LICE! I was shocked. And not to mention grossed out. She had been at school the day before too! Did mom bother to call and tell me, NO! Ah! But the best part is that this isn't the first time she's had head lice this year! By now I'm thinking... WHAT?!?!?!? No one told me! Apparently she had it just before Christmas.... thanks for letting me know! Yup and it came back. If you don't get them all the first time, the eggs will hatch every 3 weeks. Naturally, you'll have a outbreak 3 weeks later if you don't do something about it. Yup, that's exactly what happened. Poor little one. I mean HELLO!

Later during the week our class was chosen to be "randomly" screened by the school nurse for "bugs" in our hair! Ha. Thank goodness no one else in our class had the little critters in their hair. The school nurse gave me the full run down on lice and what to look for. She told me more information than I wanted or needed to know. Some one once told me that lice can jump up to five feet. She said that was a myth. She also told me that most adults don't have lice or get lice as often because we shower with hotter water than children and blow dry our hair. Lice can't live in conditions like that.

One of my roommates said that if I had lice that I would have to sleep outside. How sad.
Thank goodness I don't because its freezing out there! And by the time we found out about it, it would be too late anyways. Oh well.

I have all these questions going through my head about the origin of lice. I mean where do they come from. How do you get it? I mean other than from another person who already has it. Was there a person who was designated to be the host person for spreading lice? Because it can't survive without a blood host for more than 72 hours. I know i probably sound really ignorant right now, but i was just trying to figure out where this nasty little bug came from and how one of my students ended up with a colony on her head!

p.s. the rid shampoo or whatever it is that you use to wash your hair with doesn't kill the eggs, just the live ones. you have to comb out all the eggs. at least thats what the school nurse told me...