When “The 10 Plagues” is the Theme of Your Birthday Party

I celebrated my birthday on Friday. In years past, I:

  • Was on my honeymoon in Costa Rica.
  • Had the time of my life on a cruise to Belize and Honduras.
  • Attended the quarter-finals for hockey at the Olympics.
  • Received a new car.

Now, lest you think my birthday has been all about extravagance let me assure you it has often coincidentally fallen during such occasions.

There was a respectable amount of fanfare surrounding my latest birthday. Lunch with a friend. Dinner with family. A night out with my husband Jamie while the kids slept over at Grandma’s. A couple’s massage the next morning.

What I planned was very different from what I got: LICE.

Jamie and I were sitting on the couch a few hours before the festivities were to begin when he discovered a wretched little black bug in my hair, then another. He rushed to the store, consulted with the pharmacist and the rest of the day was not filled with celebrations but with disinfection and exorcisms.

We were delighted to discoverI had infected the kids as well. I could blame it on my daughter’s preschool but I think the blame falls on me: my head has been itchy since a spa treatment I received a few weeks ago.

Nice to know I have been spreading the love all this time.
lice
If you’ve never had lice, allow me to delight you with a few sordid details. Soak your heads in lovely lice-busting shampoo. Take a fine-tooth comb and scrape those little buggers away. Repeat this process 1,000 times. Then wash everything you have touched over the last few weeks. Finally, inform your friends who will then banish you for life.

Evidently, lice is the new leprosy.

Of course, there is humor in everything. Like when Jamie was scrubbing my head as I was bent over the bathtub and he started singing “Happy Birthday.” Or when he started listing off the ten plagues I was inevitably going to acquire: “First comes lice, then boils and locusts, etc.” Fortunately, he left off the death of the firstborn.

Or the slaying of insensitive husbands.

And the highlight of my day? When they sang “Crappy Birthday” to me as I blew out the candles on my cake.

Jamie did somewhat redeem himself later that night when he returned home after doing a second run to the store for lice-busting shampoo. He sympathetically took one look at me, handed me some Girls Scout cookies and said, “COMFORT FOOD.”

There may be hope for him yet.

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