The Wills Family

Petrolium Jelly

Well, I haven’t blogged in almost exactly a year. Even though, to my behoovement, many friends and family have been requesting an entry. So, tonight while googling Fry Sauce, I came across another blog with info on the subject. Once in blogger, I could not resist searching for my own blog, which brought me here.

This is an entry that I started last year. And so of course I have no recollection what or why I was writing about Vaseline!?

To the best of my memory, my youngest daughter had gotten into the stuff and smeared it places that I really didn’t want it to be. I mean places like my walls, my couches, and all over herself and her clothing. It is the WORST to try and clean up Petrolium Jelly. There has got to be some kind of trick!! Even in these cool sites, about the stuff you can’t find CLEAN UP info. What to do? Only for a mother to figure out.

My brother in law Jordan and his cousin Joe once decided to spread a whole canister of Vaseline all over one another’s head of hair. Can you imagine cleaning that up? After reading one of the above links, I think it is important to state that Jordan and Joe were toddlers at the time of their Vaseline smearing!

Why is that us Mom’s are always faced with these situations???

I was talking to one of my sisters tonight about my other sister. Imagine that! We were discussing how I am totally leery of her coming to visit. (yeah, YOU, figure out which sister I am talking about) This sister, SHANNON, is an immacualte housekeeper. She even didn’t get totally flat paint in her nice house because she has to have a paint that she can just wipe the smudges off. Smudges on the walls….aren’t those supposed to stay there until they move out???? So, Shannon has to deal with my smudges…I have bigger fish to fry…like when my kids get into my Vaseline!!

By the way, I told someone out there that I would blog another entry before the one year mark…looks like I barely made it….If anyone happens to get on my site that I have abandoned for so long….please make a comment…if someone is actually reading, I may have more motivation to write another entry!

Aisley Paisley

My newest niece!

Aisley is a CUTIE, isn’t she? They considered naming her Ainsely, but we all concurred that it wouldn’t be a good name for a little Mormon girl….sounds too much like the name of a beer.

Now that we have one nephew on LeGrand’s side, that brings the whopping total of nieces and nephews to 19 and one on the way. Crazy. My kids are so fortunate to have so many cousins.

Well, I don’t have anything funny to say, but lucky for you I feel like rambling a bit. I just tried to google my blog with a search for im so funny and got 19 pages of results. After checking 6 pages, I gave up. Guess I am not going to be famous. Oh well.

I heard a good quote the other day. “In this world, the thing that matters most is, not how many people know you when you die, but how your close family and friends feel about you.”

So, since you guys are the only ones who read this blog, I sure do hope you like me a little bit or else I have failed on both ends.

Hoppy Easter

Here comes Peter Cottontail

My sister Renee called this morning with somewhat disturbing news. O.k. it is only really disturbing if you are under 5 years old or a mom of someone who it, but here it is. Renee was so sad for her kids. I told her that she should write a letter and complain.

Renee had taken her three small children into the city of St. George for their community easter egg hunt.
Before the festivites were through, the teenager playing the Easter Bunny decided that, even though it was 42 degreees outside, he was just TOO hot to keep his costume on. He took his Easter Bunny head off right in front of all of the bright eyed children.

I think you will back me up when I say, this kid needed some serious on the job training. C’mon, do you think that Chuck E. Cheese would ever strip his head off in front of the birthday goers? NO WAY! What about the characters at Disneyland? They would be fired on the spot! and have no defense in their impending lawsuit. I mean, imagine it. Is Santa allowed to shed his fake beard in front of a line of eagerly waiting children? Do I have to answer that?

I can only speak for my niece and nephew: they were traumatized. 4 year old Tannon asked my sister, “Mom, why did the easter bunny take his head off? Why isn’t he real?” I just imagaine all of the children running around like chickens with their heads cut off when the easter bunny decided to strip down. “Oh, no, oh, no…the easter bunny lost his head.”

This news reminded me of a Maury Povich show that I saw years ago. The show was about people who had very interesting phobias. This one forty year old woman was deathly afraid of character costumes. For the dramatic effect, while this woman tried to explain her bizarre fear, the show had orchestrated an Easter Bunny onto the stage. Her reaction was explanation enough. As soon as she saw the bunny, she jumped up and over about four rows of the studio audience. She was terrified……she probably witnessed a bunny take his head off when she was just a wee-one too.

The Display

Fireworks…for me they represent the test of true love

I should save this entry for Independence Day, but it is the one that I feel like writing about today.

On July 4, 1997, my husband proved his love for me. How did he do that, you ask? Well, pretty much all he had to do was stick around. My family would probably have been very successful at running anybody else off. Even after this night LeGrand stuck around to marry me on August 15, 1997.

My parents thought that it would be a lovely idea to invite LeGrand’s sister and her husband, and Jordan, LG’s little brother over for the 4th of July celebration. We lived directly above the Lavell Edwards Stadium, which hosts not only BYU football, but, also, the biggest fireworks display of the year, The Stadium of Fire. We could see the show from the backyard and we were all excited to get in on the action without paying for the tickets.

We had enough food to last the evening, and my family so generously provided the entertainment until the fireworks display began. How did they do that, you ask? Well, all my family had to do was basically be themselves and it was enough to send my soon-to-be in-laws into hysterics.

First, my mom decided that it would be more comfortable to pull out all of our family room furniture onto the lawn. Yes, may be embarassing to some, but we had to offer the best seat to the company. Then, my brothers commenced in lighting the firecrackers. This was a sight to see: a bunch of grown men acting like they were 8 years old again.

The night was topped off with the two events that my in-laws still speak of today. First, was a display of my father’s typical problem solving skills (it has to be BIG). When we ran out of matches to light the firecrackers, my dad decided to pull out the blow torch. My brothers then spent the rest of the night fighting over who would have the honor of lighting up the stuff.

My brother, Adam, decided to crown himself as the evening’s commentator. He would delight us all with the names of what kind of firecrakers were being lit. We then all headed up to the roof (a family tradition, that didn’t seem the least bit odd to me – I am desensitized). All 20 of us headed up, trying not to consider the people who lived upstairs from us. We invited them to join us, but only one took us up on the offer. We had the best show in the house and it was all free.

The award for the best entertainment of the night goes to Adam, when he said, “Now these fireworks are my very favorite…they are called the little sperm fireworks.”

Hairbows

70’s style Hairbows

One part of having daughters is dealing with all of their hair things. I think that since we had our first daughter, not a holiday has gone by that we haven’t been gifted some kind of hair thing. If you are a man, you have no idea how many hair things exist in the world. Whenever we recieve one, or the same one again, I always ACT very grateful and I guess, deep down, I have mixed feelings. I am so happy that I won’t have to buy them myself, but bummed that I will now have to keep track of this new one. Even though I am the queen of organization, I have two things that cause me problems: tupperware and hairthings.

At our house we go through barrettes like nobody’s business. Every time I turn around, one of the girls has lost some kind of hair thing, leaving their hair in disarray. I have recently converted to headbands. Headbands seem a little bit harder for the girls to lose. The bad thing about headbands is that at any given chance, Bella likes to pull them out of Abigail and Sophia’s hair, along with a handful of their hair. When we wrestle Bella down to get the headband back, we provoke her agression to the point that she snaps the poor plastic band in half. Leaving all girls involved in complete hysteria.

Well, this blog entry is mostly for my sister Renee, but you may still enjoy it. Renee is 24 today.(and the mother of 3 – crazy) Happy St. Patrick’s Day and Happy Birthday to you, Renee. Renee reminded me of the “Hairbow” story the other day. She informed me that after the years and years that she has listened to the story, she still didn’t know what kind of hairbows we were talking about. I promised her a picture, so here it is. The poor child grew up in the 80’s and completely missed the cool look of braiding two ponytails on each side of the head, and then tying them up in a loop with one of these beautiful fuzzy hairbows.

Now, for the story. It really isn’t that funny, but it shows how desperate I was for entertainment as a child. My sister Shannon and I shared a room growing up. The room was small and sported a set of bunkbeads, a play kitchen set and a dresser. We had hours and hours of fun soaking spaghetti noodles in water atop our play stove. We really thought that we were cooking those noodles, and we loved to eat our homecooked delicatessen. (YUCK!)

Another thing that we loved to do was play Barbies. What girl doesn’t? We would dump out the suitcase full of barbies onto the floor and then proceed to take turns picking the items. We would go through the barbies, then the dresses, other clothes, and end off with the accessories. I don’t know what we did about the shoes with no match, but I am sure that most of the shoes were missing their match.

When these two activities got old, Shannon and I used our imaginations to come up with something a little more interesting. The best game involved the ceiling. If you were around in the 70’s, you know exactly what I am talking about when I say that we had popcorn ceilings throughout our house. Even though Renee wasn’t born until 1981, even she knows what I am talking about. We, unlike many others, never rennovated those popcorn ceilings. If it wasn’t for the fact that we sold the house to someone else, we may have been able to call our house true vintage with its remaining ceilings.

Well, as ugly as the popcorn ceilings were, they were great for one thing, and maybe only one thing. (did you know that they are full of asbestos?)Popcorn ceilings and fuzzy hairbows are a perfect match. They cling to one another like a sweater and a dryer sheet. I don’t know how my sister and I figured this out, but I am guessing it had something to do with me being in my sister’s top bunk, taunting her that I would throw her hairbow over to the alligators down on the floor.

My sister and I would spend hours and hours gathering up all the hairbows in the house that we could find, and then tossing them off the side of the top bunk. We perfected the throw to the point that we could make a hairbow stick every time. As time went on, the game progressed into seeing how far out we could throw the bows. One days our brothers got in on the action, and they showed us how to jump off the bunk and retrieve the bows on our way down.

Shannon and I were never as good as my brothers at retrieving the bows. Most of our hairbow sessions would end with us hollering for their assistance at getting the last few stray ones down. If the brothers weren’t available, I might take one last try at it. Shannon would not dare. If all else failed, we would hunt down the broom and hit down the ribbon. Retreiving the ribbons off of the ceiling were some of the few times that we ever got to play in the snow. We lived in the sunny Southern California, and dancing around in asbestos popcorn ceiling flakes made us feel like we belonged in the movie, A White Christmas.

It’s too bad that fuzzy hairbows are out of style. I guess it is O.k., my girls could never have the fun that we did with them anyway. We don’t have a popcorn ceiling, and coming down on our hardwood floor would not be pretty. And, they don’t have any brothers to retreive the hard ones for them.

Mother Hen

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Poltergeist

It seems that I have blogged a lot about my dad, but I have yet to tell you about my mom. Both of my parents made for my interesting upbringing. I have been to many therapy sessions and talked about my family, but writing this blog has been the best therapy yet. I have found myself laughing about my family, instead of blaming them for my issues. Yes, we were unorthodox and disfunctional, but as I write, I realize that we had some really good times, and I was taught one very good coping technique: laughter.

My mom provided many of the good times. When I was younger my mom was the life of the neighborhood. We must have gone through a box of sandwich bags every day of the summer. She would keep us busy for hours filling them up and throwing them at the neighbor kids. Why didn’t we use water balloons? I don’t know. Probably because sandwich bags were always on hand. Sandwich bags were also much easier to fill….dump them in a bucket of water and Wala…full to the rim.

I have many stories about my mom. My mom’s most apparent feature is that she considers herself to be every child’s mom. She has no qualm about laying a lecture down any time any where. She was always the one cheering the loudest in the stands at the sporitng events. Were those cheers for us kids? Yes. Of course. But, they were also for our coaches, “Good job coach.”, our other teammates, “Way to go Monica.”, the umpire, “Nice call ref.”, and last but definitely not least, the other team, “Good playing Oceanside, you are on your mark today.” I am sure that you could also hear my mom cheering on all the fans in the stands, rallying them up, “Let’s go parents, let’s go.”

When I was in 6th grade, I had finally almost recovered from the 4th grade situation. Then, my teacher chose to show Poltergeist. I, being the sensitive child that I was, as well as sheltered and naive, couldn’t sleep for weeks after viewing the movie at school. I was scared out of my pants. I had nightmare after nightmare. My mom was getting sick of me coming into her room and waking her and my dad up. She started to grill me for details. I never wanted to give them up because I knew exactly how my mom would react.

My brothers, on the other hand, knew exaclty what I was afraid of. By some freaky coincidence, during the same time period, my sister and I had this porcelain clown in our room. I couldn’t even look at it after watching Poltergeist. I was terrified that it would come to life and harm me. At nights, I would gather up every bit of courage that I had, grab the clown, smothering it in my pillow, and as quickly as possible I would deposit it somewhere else in the house, usually in one of my brother’s rooms. I would run back and close the door behind me, feeling mighty accomplished that the clown would not be able to harm me, just my brothers.

Well, after a little while, my brothers figured out what I was doing. They loved to sneak back in our room and leave the clown next to my bed. In the middle of the night, after one of my nightmares, I would wake up to a real nightmare next to my bed.

After weeks of this torture, I finally gave in and told my mom what we had seen at school. She reacted just as I thought that she would, but I was so down-trodden by this point, I didn’t care. First, my mom, gave me a lecture about how I should have told the teacher that I wasn’t allowed to watch movies of that nature. Second, she tried to give me the pep talk that it wasn’t real and it was nothing to be afraid of. Third, she got rid of the clown. And, fourth, she marched down to that school’s principal’s office and gave her a piece of her mind.

Well, of course, the teacher was in trouble. She had to apologize to the class and the parents. A few of the other children got in trouble with their parents. The class then came after me….they knew exactly whose mom had made the stink. Mother Hen of course….she wanted to protect all the children in the 6th grade from that filthy trash of a show. What my mom did or didn’t realize is that she had succeeded at making me an outcast for another year of my life. She did the right thing, but I can only say that because now I am also a Mother Hen. I have to say that if I am ever faced with the same situation, I will want to do the same thing, but I probably won’t just because of the scars that I still carry from the 6th grade.

The Datsuns

Sheila with Adam

May Sheila Rest In Peace. This is the last known picture of one of our beloved Datsun 210’s. Yes, you heard me correct….ONE of our Datsun 210’s. Our family had the fortune of owning two of them, at the same time. Because Adam, Shannon, and I were all in high school and driving at the same time, my parents honored us with both cars. Between the three of us, we still had to share, but hey, we took what we could get. Sharing two cars was definitely better than just having one.

I totally agree with my parents’ decision of giving us pieces-of-junk to drive. (Not that they drove anything nicer) As you can tell from the picture above, these cars took a good beating. (I don’t know why any parent would give their amateur driving child a new car.) For the life of me, I cannot recall how we even knew the difference between the two cars; they were like identical twins. They were the same make and model, the same exterior color, the same interior color, and the same piece of junk. In the beginning, I guess the only way we knew the difference was by the liscence plate. However, after breaking the cars in, it must have been much easier to tell the difference. I personally crashed one of the cars. After my fender bender, we always knew the difference. No one wanted to drive the Datsun without the grill.

The Datsun that I crashed never got her grill back. The only reason that I know that I didn’t crash Sheila is from the picture above (notice Sheila still has her front grill). The Datsun I crashed was never forunate to have a name, like Shiela. Adam named Sheila years after we were in high school. He bought her from my parents for $2. Sheila was a great car. I can remember taking her on a trip from Provo, Utah to Carlsbad, California and back (aproximately 1200 miles round trip). Sheila had no heater, and the weather was below zero in Utah. We almost froze to death, all cuddled up under quilts. We were like Mormon pioneers. We were so happy when we reached Happy Valley (Las Vegas) where it finally started to warm up.

Another side note about Sheila is that she had no defrosting component. So, not only did we freeze to death when driving in her, we also, had a special way of clearing the windows for driving vision. Adam kept a towel and a credit card in the front seat of the car at all times. He would stop every ten miles or so and perform the ritual of scraping the left side of the window down and then wiping it thoroughly. On this one particular long trip, it became the shotgun passenger’s responsibility. This way we wouldn’t have to stop. It becasme a real talent to scrape the window without obstructing the driver’s vision.

The other Datsun with no name, never took any long distance trips that I can think of. Although, I am sure that the car was involved with many other fun times: Like the time we stole 12 pairs of shoes from the bowling alley, only to have my dad find them in the back of the car the next day. We had to drive back to the bowling alley after church and give them back with an apology.

The most memorable time that I spent with the Datsun-with-no-name was when I was a Senior in High School. I had this boyfriend, Matt Jewell. He was a freshman, and I sure did take a lot of slack for dating him, but I was very immature for my age and he was so FINE! One night, Matt and I were driving down the coast. Of course, I was driving, since he was only 15. (Hey, I was barely 17)

So, we’ve already established that the Datsun was a piece of junk. It had a tail light out and the registration wasn’t up to date. The one other fun thing about the car is that it had wires hanging down from the steering wheel. Someone had broken the key off in the ignition and my dad solved the problem by showing us each how to start the car by hotwiring it. Well, it was all fun and games to us and our friends. But, on this particular night, when I was trying to impress my goodlooking boyfriend, my car was not a reason to be proud. When the policeman pulled me over for a fix-it ticket and a registration warning, I could have died on the spot. The worst part of all was when he asked me about the wires. I must have looked like a deer caught in the headlights while trying to explain to him that we really did own the car.

I don’t know what happened to the Datsun-with-no-name, but it assuredly sat out in front of our house in a non-working state for at least a year. Sheila finally met her demise when Adam left her on the side of the road. She just gave up her will to live and my brother was too poor to do anything about it. Eventually, the city compounded her. She was probably so relieved to sit in a junkyard. Hey, a junkyard is Disneyland to a car that spent the last leg of its life being driven by us. And, at least Sheila could go out in glory instead of collecting dust in our yard like her identical twin with no name.

Jellyfish and June Bugs

an underwater wonder

Alright, so a few entries ago in Sisterhood, I tattled on my sister Shannon for forcing me into a spanking that I didn’t deserve. I guess there really is something called Sisterhood because my other sister, Renee, has gotten all over my case for making Shannon feel bad. I think I am o.k. with Shannon, but just to make her feel better, I will now pleasure you with a confession of my own.

As you know, I am the middle of seven. At the top of the line-up there is Erick. Four years later came Adam, then a year later, Shannon, and I came a whopping 18 months after her. Shannon was always the little princess. I found my way by NOT trying to be like her. I guess I realized at a young age that I could never compete with the first most perfect daughter. So, I settled into the fun-loving, somewhat tomboyish, “throwing caution to the wind” girl. I am still so glad that Shannon took the princess role; I am so much more fun than those prissy girls. Just ask LG.

As you picture Shannon, the princess, you can imagine her feeling towards creepy crawly things. She absolutely detested any kind of insect, and would scream at the top of her lungs for someone to save her whenever she spotted one. I can’t tell you how many mornings I would have to fish spiders out of the tub before she could shower.

Well, I always thought that Shannon’s fear was unfounded. (I still don’t understand it when girls are afraid of those little creepy things – you can squash them between your fingers, for heaven’s sake) I determined at an early age that I would be the one to cure my girlygirl sister of her irrational phobia.

In California there was an insect called the JuneBug (it usually surfaced in May, NOT explaining its common name, at all). These bugs are much like the South’s Firefly, except they lack any kind of cool “light”. JuneBugs were more apparent at night and would attach themselves to our window screens (because the light is so pretty). They looked like a teeny brownish version of a beetle mixed with a bee. My sister hated those bugs, and just the sound of their buzzing would scare her enough that she would have to run from shelter to shelter, as to not be attacked.

Of course, the sight of my sister sprinting from the house to the car was absolutely ridiculous. Whenever I would trail my sister, I would always collect a few JuneBugs on the way. I would then proceed to throw them at her, with or without warning. Those bugs would be crazed from being trapped in my hand and would fly full-speed ahead at Shannon. I would get one really good laugh every time from her agonizing reaction. Shannon would always go nuts, and she provided unlimited entertainment for me and my brothers.

My mom or dad would always come behind and instruct me to stop the torture. I would collect up the JuneBugs and say sorry. But, Shannon knew that the torture would never end: whenever the JuneBugs were out, she was on guard.

While we lived in Alaska for the summer of ’81, to my disappointment, there were no JuneBugs. I had to find a new source of entertainment. And, so I did. It wasn’t hard to do; there were all kinds of creepy crawly things to choose from. Of course I chose the thing that intimidated Shannon the most…..jellyfish.

Jellyfish always lingered in the ocean close to the house. They washed up on the shore every day. Whenever Shannon and I would venture out to play, I would hide myself in the tall grass out in front of our shanty with a dead or dying Jellyfish in hand, waiting to be put to use. Just like a crouching tiger, I would wait for Shannon’s approach and then I would attack. I would use my good arm (I was quite the softball player in my day) always aiming for her head.

I usually hit the target and she would be so petrified that she would freeze in place and beg me to come and retreive it before it killed her. She was always the smart one and would remind me every time, “Alice, jellyfish are poisonous; they can kill you.” I usually beleived what she would try to teach me, but not about the poison because she never got stung or poisoned. What would I do in response to my sister begging for mercy? Do I have to answer that question? Of course, I would retreive the jellyfish, tell my sister that I just couldn’t resist the fun, apologize, and wait for the next opportunity to attack. Shannon always forgave me for my abuse; personally, I think that she should have beat the crap out of me. To this day, I still think that she takes too much crap from people.

So, there you have it, Shannon. I definitely think that my ongoing creepy crawly torture, was much less justifiable than your dodging of a spanking with a belt. So, really, truly, this time, I am very sorry. I will never scare you again. Promise.

Sisterhood

Sisters (left to right) Shannon, Alice, Sarah, Renee

This is a picture that was taken in 1992 of my sisters and I. Do you know that we all have the same middle name: Elaine? Yeah, my parents figured since they were going to have so many kids that they would keep it simple. Well, Elaine is a good name, but I took on my maiden as my middle when I got married. After all those years of competing with my sisters, I was ready to be an original.

Sisters are the BEST. I know I could call my sisters for anything and they would drop whatever to come to my rescue. Brothers, on the other hand, I am not so sure about.

Well, there was a time in my life when I was VERY angry with my sister Shannon. (Now, Shannon, stop reading, I don’t want you to relive your agony) My brother-in-law told this story last year and it left my sister in tears. It’s 20 years later and she still feels bad. I told her that I forgave her a long time ago and that she has done so many good things for me over the years that this one bad thing really means nothing. But, it is a great story to tell…

Shannon and I always gave my parents grief when it was bedtime. (What kid doesn’t?) When I was about 9 and Shannon was about 10, our room was the last at the end of the very long hallway that I talked about in The Home of the Free and Holes(3/2). We could always hear my dad coming because the keys in his pocket would jingle around when he walked. So, we always felt relatively safe that we could quiet up before he got too close.

Well, this one particular night, my dad was fed up. He had already had to make that very long walk down the hall twice and we still were “monkeying” around instead of going to sleep. My dad had warned us that if he had to come to our room one more time, someone would get spanked with his belt. (This was a HUGE threat, my dad never used a belt) We never thought that he would go through with it, nonetheless, I was afraid and getting tired and so I kept trying to tell Shannon to go to sleep.

I had gotten Shannon so riled up that she didn’t want to sleep and she kept trying to play. She jumped over to my bed and was sitting on top of me trying to wrestle, when we heard my dad coming down the hall. I was petrified and started saying,”It’s Shannon’s fault. She did it.” Well, Shannon was the angel of the family (especially when you compared her to me) But, right at the moment that it counted the most, she made one very CRUEL decision. She grabbed me, got underneath me, and held me on top of her. She started screaming repeatedly, “Alice, get off of me.”

I tried to scream that she was lying, but most everyone in my family had learned to tune me out. My dad was so LIVID by this point that all he wanted to do was follow through with his threat. My dad must not have noticed that Shannon was acutally in my bed. He grabbed me, marched me down the hall, made me watch him get his belt, and I got it good. Let me tell you, getting beat with a belt is not fun. It hurt. It hurt as bad, if not worse than giving birth with an epideral. He only spanked me once, but I felt like I was getting beat. Not only had my sister, my best friend, betrayed me, but my Dad didn’t believe me when I was telling the truth.

I went to bed sobbing and heart-broken. Shannon was forced to sit and listen in all her guilt. She had gotten back into her bed by this point. By the morning, it didn’t matter anymore, but I learned a very good lesson about Sisterhood that night: When I figure out what it is, I will let you know.

Alice

An adult female louse

I hated my name while growing up. I was always the only ALICE, among many Alissons and Ali’s. I was called Allison more often than I was Alice. I had serious conversations with my parents about legally changing my name, but I never did.

I have now grown to love my name. My campaign theme, “Alice in Lancerland”, won me the title of Sophomore Class President. Alice is a good classic name and I guess my parents were wise in their choosing. Even if I was the only child who bore the name of a Sr. Citizen, it is o.k. now. I grew into my name somewhere between 25 and 30.

As you can see from my previous post, Cialis, my name tends to get me into trouble.

One of the most memborable examples was the 4th grade. My sister and I made some new friends down the street and were reluctantly allowed to spend the night. We took home with us some new teeny friends….headlice.

Well, when I was in elementary school, about every 6 months, the school nurse would come into the classroom and perform a mass screening. You know, the nurse would come in with her gloves on, holding her stash of long Q-tips, and each of us would get a chance to sit in her special chair and have her pick through our hair like a chimpanzee.

To my complete humiliation, I was called out 30 minutes after the screening was through. EVERYONE knew exactly why. I was the kid with the headlice. When I got up to the school office, I was totally relieved to see my sister got sent out too.

Well, my sister had fine slick hair, and getting rid of her lice was easy. When we went back to the office the next morning for our readmittance test, she passed with flying colors. I, on the other hand, with my course, thick, long hair, was sent home again. This happened the next day also. Finally after 15 bottles of RID, and a really short hair cut, I was allowed to come back to school.

You may wonder how this has anything to do with my name…..well, here is the sob story. Really, it is going to break your heart. Oh, by the way, the Harvard School of Medicine calls these mass screenings totally unacceptable. (I suspect one of their doctors had as much of a traumatizing experience as me. – although, I don’t know who could top mine)

Man, my head is itching right now, just thinking about it. So, you would think that I was redeemed when I went back to school, right. NO WAY! The kids were terrified of me. They wanted nothing to do with me and my head cooties. For the rest of the school year, whenever I was privileged enough to be addressed….I was affectionately known as “A – lice”. How quaint.

Oh, and if you don’t think that stereotyping happens in the classroom. You are dead wrong. My teacher, Mrs. Steadleman treated me like the TRASHIEST kid. Even though I was very bright, my report cards always reflected the detest that she had for me. The only thing I could figure is that she was terrified by headlice, just like the rest of the kids in my class.