Word: nits
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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...
...Lice look like tiny crabs, and nits are tiny gray pearls cemented to the hair shaft near the root. The only sure way to get rid of lice and their eggs is pore over the hair, starting with a good nit comb. Wet the hair, divide it into many sections, and then methodically comb from the scalp outward. Make sure the child is sitting in a brightly lighted area, preferably in front of a good long video...
...Boomers who have delayed parenthood to pursue their careers have a special problem with nitpicking: by the time the kids are old enough to bring lice home, the aging parents are often too blind to see the nits. Reading glasses or a good magnifying glass can help. Meanwhile, Dr. Sydney Spiesel, a researcher at Yale, is developing a "nit detector" - a shampoo containing Blankophor, which he says will adhere to the lice and nits and make them visible under ultraviolet light. He plans to market the shampoo and a black light together, making the nitpicking process "Fun!" he says...
...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 by the nit...
...change. The proposals' lack of specifics, though, have left Gore's team of parsers without the kind of ammunition they used to riddle Bill Bradley's body during the primaries, and Democrat kingmakers are now worrying that Bush looks like a visionary and Gore looks like a hidebound nit-picker. So Gore's aides now tell the Washington Post their man now means to hang back a bit. He'll look for ways to extend Bill Clinton's best legacies into something Al can call his own - and tell more personal stories, meant to help Gore's famously elusive lovable...