Word: lice
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This column is about head lice, so by the time you?re done reading, you'll be scratching your scalp. Don't be alarmed. This is a reflexive response to the words lice and nit. I've been scratching and obsessively checking my scalp for a week, and all I can say is, I'll take a psychosomatic case of Pediculus humanus capitis over the real thing...
...September usually sees a bump in the reported cases of head lice as kids go back to school. Despite the common misconception that lice can leap tall buildings, like fleas, they're actually crablike crawlers, moving from scalp to scalp. Though lice don't usually transmit disease, they can cause a lot of discomfort, embarrassment and missed school days, so parents should deal with head lice the moment they become aware of an infestation...
...know that some people on the left might oppose an award to Dr. Spiesel on the ground that an advancement in fighting head lice is basically a service to the rich, the medical equivalent of a Republican tax-cut plan. Dr. Spiesel himself has acknowledged that although head lice were formerly associated with poor people who couldn't afford proper hygiene, "these days, head lice seem to especially favor wealthier people...
...true that what the Serengeti Plain is to lions, the poshest private grade schools in Manhattan are to head lice. In recent years the head-lice problem at private schools has increased at almost the same rate as tuition, leading to the theory, not yet proved, that some of these places must be charging...
...theory that has always been at the core of all Republican tax-cut proposals--if rich people pay less in taxes, we'd all be better off--may actually make sense when applied to head lice, which like to jump from head to head, irrespective of the head's economic circumstances. Passing along lice, after all, works on more or less the same principle as trickle-down economics, but it's more certain...