Ten years ago, I worked at a children´s home. A very large children´s home. I helped take care of 25 first and second grade girls. Now, for those of you who have also taken care of school-age children, lice is simply a fact of life. Rather like chicken pox.
Except that we can get lice more than once. That´s a real bummer.
Our girls were no exception to this fact of life. And because they all lived together in close quarters (and we didn´t have great access to lice shampoo that year) everyone spent at least a couple of weeks out of the year with lice.
As I was the most mature and among the more patient of the women who took care of these girls, I was the designated lice-picker.
Surprisingly, though, the more I did it, the more I enjoyed it. It was mindless work, but I could be seated fairly comfortably. (Can´t say the same for my lice-infested counterpart, but . . . them´s the shakes.) It was quiet work and no one was hanging on me or whining at me (unless it was the kid whose head I was picking at, but again . . . too bad for them!) I actually looked forward to lice-picking hour.
And then it dawned on me--I could sell out my amazing nit-picking services! If lice-infested kids aren´t allowed to go to school, how much time can working parents really take off to pick the lice out of their kids´ heads? Would some even be willing to PAY me to do it?
Turns out, somebody beat me to that punch!
If you´ve got a lice-y kid in Saltillo, send them to Piki-Piki, downtown on Salazar, just south of the Alameda.
