What exactly is that itch? Lice. Lice? LICE!!!! Head lice are literally the bane of a parents existence. But should we really be so afraid? The Dads take on this head scratcher. Are they bugs? Parasites? What should you do if it affects your kids? Do you have to clean your entire house if it strikes your children? Find out in DadLabs Ep. 73 The Lounge.

Daddy Clay: Welcome to the Lounge where today we are going to be discussing a crisis that has beset my little neighborhood. It’s a crisis that’s galvanized the community in a way that has the stay-at-home moms surging through the streets protesting with flaming brands. They’re upset, they’re getting together and they’re acting to get change because in our elementary school some kids have head lice. Now, head lice.

Daddy Brad: Ridiculous. Humanous captious.

Daddy Clay: No, head lice. And this has got the ladies of my neighborhood so upset you can’t send me an email. You want to know why? Because I’ve got two hundred emails from moms at the school upset because their kid may get a bug on their head.

Daddy Brad: They’re not bugs.

Daddy Clay: These people are more worried about head lice than they are Ebola, global warming, you know and bird flu combined. It is a full on panic.

Daddy Brad: Well, they’re gross, sure, they’re gross. But they’re not bugs.

Daddy Clay: They’re not bugs?

Daddy Brad: No, their parasites, they live on your head and suck your blood.

Daddy Clay: Okay…

Daddy Brad: Do you know how often they eat?

Daddy Clay: No I don’t know how often they eat.

Daddy Brad: Every four hours – every four hours.

Daddy Clay: Dude…

Daddy Brad: Have you ever had head lice before?

Daddy Clay: No.

Daddy Brad: Okay, if you had head lice before…

Daddy Clay: How am I going to get lice, Brad?

Daddy Brad: Head-to-head contact.

Daddy Clay: They would be the loneliest frickin lice. That would be like the lice stuck in the sand.

Daddy Brad: Not a lot of heat up there.

Daddy Clay: I don’t have a rug in this fight. Can they live in your back hair? Because then….oh, hey – just go ahead and delete that visual image from your mind.

Daddy Brad: Ooo, okay. If you did have lice and they bit you, would you feel it?

Daddy Clay: Yes.

Daddy Brad: No, you would feel it because they inject some kind of anesthetic into your head when they bite you.

Daddy Clay: Okay – does it kill you, is my question.

Daddy Brad: No.

Daddy Clay: Does it kill you is my question, because otherwise why are these parents freaking out so bad about a couple of bugs.

Daddy Brad: Well, they’re gross.

Daddy Clay: I mean, these ladies – they’re dragging their kids out of school and doing like a prophylactic head shave on the kid. You know what I mean?

Daddy Brad: They’re putting condoms on kids’ heads? That’s completely unnecessary. You know, they’ve got these no nit policies in schools. Completely unnecessary too.

Daddy Clay: What do mean?

Daddy Brad: Do you know what a nit is? Didn’t we just talk about that?

Daddy Clay: I know what a nit-wit is.

Daddy Brad: It’s a lice egg. Let’s do a little lice fact or fiction.

Daddy Clay: Okay, lice fact or fiction. Let’s go, that sounds great.

Daddy Brad: You’ve got nits…

Daddy Clay: How do you know about lice?

Daddy Brad: You need to know about these things, man. Come on, you got kids, you might – you might – you’re having it right now. Your kids are in a school that has some lice. You need to know the facts about lice. Okay, here’s the one deal. Fact or fiction: Got nits, you’re going to get lice.

Daddy Clay: Yes. Nits are lice eggs so that means if you’ve got the eggs, you’re going to have …why are you shaking your head?

Daddy Brad: No, no. Only one in five kids that have the nits actually develop adult lice. So…

Daddy Clay: Well that doesn’t make any sense. So the eggs, they just…

Daddy Brad: They just don’t hatch…

Daddy Clay: Lice make lots of eggs that don’t hatch or what?

Daddy Brad: Yeah – they’re not very good hatchers. So one in five actually develop the actual adult lice.

Daddy Clay: Do you like, subscribe to like Playlice or something like that? For the articles?

Daddy Brad: No, it’s just very interesting. So these no nit policies, these no nit bans in school is keeping a lot of kids out of school that should be in school because they’re not gonna get lice.

Daddy Clay: Nit Weekly…I saw that in your in-box.

Daddy Brad: Well, yeah…it’s a good one.

Daddy Clay: So, okay, that’s a fiction…

Daddy Brad: That’s a fiction.

Daddy Clay: Okay, what else? Give me another one.

Daddy Brad: If your child gets lice do you have to clean everything in the house, you scrub it, use Clorox….

Daddy Clay: Yes…

Daddy Brad: You throw out all the furniture.

Daddy Clay: Okay, this may be the only thing that explains to me the hysteria. If your kid comes home with lice you have to bag all stuffed animals, each one, you’ve got to bag them up and tie it up. You’ve got clean all the bedding, and you’ve got to cover everything with plastic and then you have to burn the house down, to the ground.

Daddy Brad: No, wrong. Wrong. Fiction, fiction. You see, what you need to do is take your pillow cases and throw them in the dryer for a little big, but you don’t need to do all this other stuff. You can’t get lice from teddy bears or sitting down on the sofa because the lice that would fall off your child’s head onto these things, they’re sick or they’re elderly – I can’t jump that high.

Daddy Clay: Wait, wait, wait…

Daddy Brad: It has to be like head to head contact.

Daddy Clay: Somebody’s doing, like, exit interviews with lice. That are on the floor?

Daddy Brad: Head to head contact.

Daddy Clay: Who’s job it that? How do you know it’s a sick lice? It’s got the fever?

Daddy Brad: Well, they’re not gonna leave – they’ve got the good stuff up here so their not leaving.

Daddy Clay: Okay, so give me one more.

Daddy Brad: Okay, let’s see, one more. Lice like long hair better than short hair.

Daddy Clay: Now you got me thinking about it. Yes, because well – yes, because everyone worried about the girls and their long hair. So, yes – long hair, lice like that, it’s a more environment.

Daddy Brad: No, no – fiction. They like short hair better because if you’ve got hair down to here, there’s a long ways to climb to get to the restaurant. Like climbing to the top of a restaurant – that’s at the top of a building. If you climb the building to get to it….they want the short hair so they can just jump right down to the scalp. So, short hair they like it better and they like clean hair better than dirty hair.

Daddy Clay: Okay – I’ve got a proposal. Instead of worrying about the various ways of getting rid of lice I think we should take a lesson from our chimpanzee cousins and we should just groom one another.

Daddy Brad: Pickin’ and grinnin’.

Daddy Clay: Get together with your children and just groom them…

Daddy Brad: Disgusting.

Daddy Clay: And just…there’s good protein there and if you’ve got multiple children let them groom each other. It’s quality time; you stand just quietly grooming one another.

Daddy Brad: Yeah – that’s kind of weird.

Daddy Clay: So think about that if your kids get lice.

Daddy Brad: Here’s what you gotta do – ha ha I don’t think that’s lice – all you have to do is comb your child’s hair. Go get some of the over the counter lice shampoo, that usually works. Gone in a couple of days. No big deal.

Daddy Clay: So – everything you ever needed to know about lice.

Daddy Brad: Yeah.

Daddy Clay: Here in the Lounge. That whole thing made my head itch.

Daddy Brad: It should, but your back – your arms …

Daddy Clay: Man, I gotta go get a wax.