Lice Mom: the bane of my existence

I had another encounter with Lice Mom this morning, a followup to last week's encounter on Wednesday. Last week she brought her daughter in for a lice check to see if she could come back to school, and I sent them packing with what I would swear on my nursing license were nits, she took her daughter to the doctor to examine her. The doctor reportedly "flipped out," saying there was nothing in her hair but dandruff. "HE EVEN USED A MICROSCOPE, AND I HAD ALL THE NURSES AND M.A.'S AND DOCTORS IN AT ONCE LOOKING AT HER," she implored. I said okay, keeping my mouth shut from what I wanted to say, which was, "He didn't see anything because I took them out myself. You would have seen me doing so right in front of your face if you weren't such a tweaker." So I nodded, and we continued looking through her daughter's head. Lo and behold: a bug. Very dead, but a bug nonetheless. We looked again, and this time found a live one. I put them in a baggy for her to take to her daughter's doctor so he could examine them under a microscope, claiming my eyes were too bad to tell what they were.

There were a few things about this morning's encounter that made it particularly miserable. For one, when she came in at 8:45 - 35 minutes after school started, claiming she didn't think the nurse gets to school on time (thanks), I started looking the clock. I leave at 9:10 to check Spitfire diabetic, so I figured that would be my escape - until her teacher called to say she was absent. Crap: I was stuck with her, and I stayed stuck with her until 9:30 when she finally sauntered out to talk to the polling precinct people in our hallway today. You can probably imagine her reaction when we discovered the bugs, first dead, then alive: I will just say, totally inappropriate in front of a fifth grader. Then, as I had my back turned trying to get real work done, she called her doctor's office to schedule an appointment so he could examine the bugs. She was totally pleasant on the phone and then hung up, and said, "What a bitch. No, I'm just kidding." I don't care if you're kidding or not, I wouldn't say that's appropriate in an office where kindergarteners frequent. Also, when she was yakking at me about how the doctor flipped out and couldn't believe the nurse (me) misidentified lice, she said he will be "reporting me to the CDC." I have a hard time believing the Centers for Disease Control will actually care that lice exists, but she can go ahead and have my nursing license number if it helps. The worst part of all was the bugs that were found: it means these encounters will continue until no more are found, and I'm beginning to feel like I will never get her off my back - her daughter will go to middle school next year, but I'm at that one too; and still, no school for her little girl. 

Lice Daughter has now missed two weeks of school.