I had headlice

I have ants in my studio. Only a few but some days I notice them. I also have a gecko that lives under a poster who I presume likes eating ants so it all balances out I suppose.

I was gazing absently at the floor when I saw a tiny spec crawling along. I then noticed another and another. But they’re so small that you have to look for them. On each large floor tile there is an average of two. I’m sort of into it. I love insects,especially ants.

A panel from one of my 2000AD stories

It reminds me of the time I had headlice. The initial revulsion turned into curiosity about the little colony of creatures living on my head. I was 20 or 21 and working nights in a bakery, at the end of the 12 hour shifts I’d pull off my hair net and overalls and walk home dreaming about a shower. I worked between the extremes of the ovens and the freezer-house so you were caked in grime and grease by the end. One night I yanked off the hair net and I noticed the black dots clinging to it here and there.

I was freaked out. I couldn’t sleep because I could feel them crawling all over me.

After nearly a week of scalding my head with water I had to go the chemist and I was more embarrassed than buying condoms, tampons and small dick cream combined. In fact I chickened out at the first one because the girl was too good looking. The Lyclear cleared them up straight away.

Then they came back. I got rid of them. Then for a third time they came back. A notice appeared in the locker room and I realised it was from wearing the freezer suits which were shared. I had been eliminating them but some scruffy dope let them fester for over 2 months. Plus I was running out of chemists in Tallaght to nonchalantly score my goo.

The outbreak was quelled eventually. Then around a month later I’m mooching around the kitchen at home and I see three different sprays and creams for headlice in a press. So somebody else in the house was infected before me and maybe I brought them to the bakery. I lived with 3 girls and one of them was a proper slut, unbelievably so. I asked a house mate who I got on really well with if she ever head lice and she says no, but Mrs X (the hooer) keeps getting them, ostensibly from all the men she brings home.

So that was the first and hopefully only sexually transmitted bug I got. I think about this now and then. Was I ‘patient zero’ in the bakery? Did somebody from the bakery bang Mrs. X? Was it two independent colonies? It’s interesting once you get past the creepiness of the whole thing, how these tiny blood sucking creatures flourish in this sterile modern world, despite ipods and hover-boards we are still hairy apes, transmitting parasites through contact.

To quote the poet:
“He fucked the fleas off a bitch
He shaked the ticks off his dick
And in the booty, he buries his motherfuckin bone
And if there’s any left over
He’ll roll over and take a doggy bag home”

Amen to that.

Posted in Blog, illustrated blogs by Bob on Aug 26th | 4 Comments