Nits

Here in chattering-class England, the subject of head-lice, or nits, is an ongoing saga. You see, it is considered de rigueur for boys to wear their hair middle-length, in contrast with girls who have it long. In point of fact, it is considered rather ‘low rent’ for boys to have very short hair and the reason is snobbery. That is “what the working-class do” according to those in the know, because “boys is boys, and girls is girls.”

This presents a problem. Head-lice simply do not attempt to populate a close cropped scalp, but they love a hirsute one. Recently, a mother at our boys’ school, not knowing the pack drill, committed the cardinal sin of brandishing hair clippers on her lousy son (by this I mean louse-ridden, not utterly hopeless, although he may have been both). Well, you should have seen the raised eyebrows and witnessed the hushed mutterings behind her back. Anyone would have thought that she had come through the school gate with her skirt hem tucked into her knickers, or actually lived out that ubiquitous terror dream of arriving at school naked from the waist down.

Needless to say, having a ‘nit session’ has become routine in our household. We apply insecticide lotion, we comb out the nits, we wash and dry, we spray with deterrent that never works, we suffer the screams and protestations. And all of that so our boys can sport fashionable hair styles as a statement of our values. Oh, and to pretend that they never get nits.

I can remember, when I was a boy, that the standard nit defence was to deflect criticism by saying that “nits actually prefer clean heads”. Of course it wouldn’t work these days, because we all have clean heads. Being the dutiful husband and father can be like that, don’t you find.

By Gerard Cheshire

Editor random comment: There's a really cool song by a band call "The Nits" (In the dutch mountains) ... check it out below (song starts 0:49 in):