The Lord of Love and Head Lice!

Hum, this is a complicated one. Where to start this post?
(Warning - this is going to be a long one!)
Alright, here we go. This isn’t going to make sense at first; but you’ll understand later why I’ve set this "skit" up the way I have.

Narrator: "Hello, my name is Annie Oakly."
       Annie Oakly - rootin tootin no-nonsense type of cow-girl with a rather unique wardrobe.
      Yeah, that’s me!

Enter stage right:
Anakin Skywalker - Anyone who’s watched all the Star Wars movies knows Anakin is a complicated character. He starts out as a slave and his life is filled with all sorts of tragedy. His mother is murdered by these little sand people called "Jawah" and his wife later dies; (in part caused by his own doing). He is somewhat of a sympathetic character, except for this diabolical streak he has. He later turns to the dark side and becomes Darth Vader.

"Anakin" is about 40 years old. He claims to have some sort of hearing impairment; but I’m not sure how severe it really is. He states it prevents him from getting a job; but I’m not inclined to believe that either, because the friend of mine who took care of Casper (the friendly ghost) while I was in the clone trooper medical facility, is a college professor and she’s deaf as a door post!

Anyways, Anakin is filled with hatred. Anakin particularly seems to dislike women. He complains constantly about how the empire’s public welfare system is prejudice against him. He can’t get what he needs, because the system "favors" women. He also claims his "ex-wife" (there’s question as to whether or not they were actually married) takes all his money in "back child support". Than in all of this, no matter how you slice the cake - Chancellor Palpatine is the cause of all his woes.

Now Anakin has two children. He’s had these kids for 6 years now; which, in the case of the youngest is longer than the mother has had the child. He claims financial hardship is the reason he has trouble feeding and clothing his kids. He tells these children he only gets 700 credits a month in Empire Disability. (He told me the same thing and than admitted that he gets Supplemental Empire Disability for one child and Empire dependent credits for both of them.) Now I know exactly how much money Anakin is taking in, because this rootin tootin cowgirl is in the same system. That’s what happens when your horse gets hit by a star fighter. Real bad news; but anyways. Point of the story is - Ol’ Annie Oakly here can adequately feed and clothe her child on this income; so what’s up with Anakin?

But than again; there appears to be evidence that "Anakin" has alcohol and nicotine addiction issues.

Next, enter stage left:
Betty Boop - Now what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a cartoon Marilyn Monroe? Betty Boop of course. Now granted, my perception of Marilyn Monroe mostly comes out of a singing Jedi Knight’s (Sir Elton John) Song "Candle in the Wind".

"Goodbye Norma Jean, though I never knew you at all;
you had the grace to hold yourself, while those around you crawl.
They crawled out of the woodwork, and whispered into your brain;
They set you on a treadmill, and they made you change your name."

"Seems to me, you lived your life like a candle in the wind;
Never knowing who to cling to when the rain set in.
I would have liked to have known you, but I was just a kid;
your candle burned out long before, your legend ever did."

"Loneliness is tough, the toughest role you ever played;
Hollywood created a superstar, but pain was the price you paid.
Even when you died, all the press still hounded you;
all the papers had to say, was that Marilyn was found in the nude."

"Goodbye Norma Jean, from the young man in the 22^nd row;
who sees you as something more than sexual, more than just our Marilyn Monroe."

Now Betty Boop is 14 years old and just like Marilyn Monroe, has certainly had her share of men in her life who were interested in little else than what they could get out of her for their own selfish "needs". Is Anakin one of the men who could be added to that list? Annie Oakly here believes it’s possible; (Betty has Stockholm Syndrome awfully bad) but the investigators of the Empire’s child services division have never pinpointed anything of that nature. (Many founded allegations of neglect though.)

So sadly, just like Marilyn; Betty Boop doesn’t know "who to cling to when the rain sets in". She has no real sense of self and just bleeds into the expectations of who ever it is she thinks she will get the most approval from. Consequently, Betty doesn’t always act or dress appropriately and will often fly into fits of rage when things don’t go her way.

Betty has a few other issues too. She eats dirty things off the ground, puts inappropriate things in her mouth, and has a fascination with dirt. I suspect Betty actually eats dirt. I’ve never witnessed her doing it; but there was one afternoon I believe that is what had happened. She’d brought a cup of dirt into a public rest room and was in there for 20 minutes. When I asked her what took so long, she said she had to wash her hands and face because she had dirt on them. The cup had come from one of those burger joints that you see all over the galaxy. It had been mine. She’d taken it and filled it with dirt, after she’d drank the left overs of Casper’s soda, ate his ice and than ate my ice. Betty has had numerous cases of parasite infection. Is it any wonder? Betty appears to me to have an eating disorder called PICA.

Betty also steals things that are of little value; except maybe to her. I’m missing a shower curtain liner. I don’t know if she’d actually taken it; but I can’t find it? She’s taken posters with other kid’s names on them, photos of other people’s children and some of Casper’s sidewalk chalk. This is another psychological disorder called Kleptomania.

Oh look; here comes the Tanzanian Devil 
Taz - Taz is a rather lovable ten year old whirlwind of chaos. You know, flies endlessly, eats couch cushions and generally leaves a wake of messes in his path. Taz is rather hazardous to the health of toys, although I don’t think it’s necessarily intensional. He has a low frustration tolerance. Taz also has a hearing impairment, speech impediment and may also be mildly cognitively impaired. Taz has a temper though and can string together quite a list of profanities. He’s got a mouth on him worse than most Storm-troopers I’ve heard. Taz tries hard though and will apologize when he’s done something wrong. He likes Casper and they generally get along fairly well together.

Taz though too isn’t without his own psychological issues. He has a tendency to urinate in inappropriate places. He’s been known to do this down heat register exchanges, (He actually did this in my house.) on bathroom floors, (at least that was easy to clean up) carpets and even his own toys. He’s only ever stayed overnight at my house one time and let me tell you; we won’t do that again! As you can probably guess; Taz is Betty Boop’s brother.

Other Characters on Naboo:

Captain Rex and Raggedy Ann - Rex was a clone trooper who served in the imperial army and suffered a traumatic brain injury from an accident while on active duty. Rex gets veteran’s benefits, but also works (at least part time).

Besides home-schooling, Raggedy Ann spends her days scouring garage sales, thrift stores, clothing closets and food banks to help feed and clothe their six kids.

Oldest boy, 16 who has a job - I’ve never seen this kid.
Goofy,14 - 15 year old - Goofy seems to be cognitively a bit slow.
Daisy Duck, 12-13 year old - She’s a good kid, tries to help Betty make better clothing choices.
Bugs Bunny, 10-11 year old - He likes to play games, but not big into computer ones. Casper likes him. Busy kid though. He’s usually doing something with his oldest brother, Captain Rex or his
grand-ma. Grand-ma lives on a farm.
Smiley, 7 year old - The name says it all!
Tweety Bird, 3 year old.

So, thus is Raggedy Ann’s household. She’s a generous soul and likes to help out when ever she can. She’s a major source of clothing, school supplies and other resources for Betty and Taz.

Whiley Coyote and Tigger- Another two souls Casper loves. They’re about 8 and 10 years old and both love video games. They come over frequently and play Lego Indiana Jones with Casper. Whiley and Tigger’s dad is rather protective of them. He doesn’t particularly like Taz’s temper and won’t let his kids play with him. He’s quite concerned about Whiley being bullied. Whiley has Torrettes Syndrome.

Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fud - 8 and 10 year old boys who’ve also had a hard life. They like to play "shoot ‘em up" video games. Ones that aren’t particularly appropriate for their ages. (Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto) They’d been in foster care and now live with Grandma. Grandma is quite vocal about the fact that she doesn’t like Taz or Betty. Betty is too "slutty" and Taz is too violent.

Elmer and Yosemite have their own demons to face though. Yosemite can be rather mean; which causes friction between him, his siblings and others in the neighborhood. Elmer is the more friendly and outgoing of the two. He’s the one who comes over the most to play with Casper. He likes theater and he and his sister "Melody" can sing quite well. We’ve all been encouraging them to pursue additional music lessons at school.

Interesting planet Naboo is - Yeah!

So here we come to the title of this post:
Lord of Love and Head Lice

Well, you can probably guess what happened. This is the second summer in a row that I’m aware of, where Taz and Betty (and Anakin) have had head lice. This summer though, they gave it to half the neighborhood; even despite my best efforts to avoid it that night Taz stayed over. When both the kids got up; I washed all the bedding including the animals and pillows that were in the bed with Taz. We still ended up with lice; yet I expect the initial infestation came before the sleep over. Both Taz and Betty had been in our house, as well as in Captain Rex and Raggedy Ann’s house. (They ended up with it too.) One week later; when cleaning Casper’s room again after the initial lice sweep - I even found dead lice in his Lego bin. I’ve washed every toy, sheet and stitch of clothing this kid owns. I’ve washed every sheet and stitch of clothing I own!

Casper had been itching for about a week before he went to camp. I’d found two black bugs with wings in his hair one night and never thought "lice", since lice are usually white or gray and don’t have wings.

Lice don’t jump or fly; they crawl. They are actually kind of hard to get (outside of head to head contact) unless a person is so infested, that the adult bugs are falling out of their hair. Lice are also species specific. Humans don’t get lice from birds or dogs, since feathers and fur are different than hair. The only other species known to be able to get human lice are monkeys. Now who originally gave it to whom (monkeys or man) no-one knows, but lice are one of those parasites that don’t cross species. So, since there are no monkeys on Naboo; we pretty much know where the lice came from. Yes, I am currently far more familiar with the life cycle of human head lice than I ever cared to know.

Sadly, I suspect Taz and Betty still have them.

Casper left for camp in the middle of August and when they did a lice check on kids coming in; they didn’t see anything. The following Wednesday morning at about 4 AM, I woke up real itchy. Now I’d had eye surgery about three weeks prior and was taking oxycodone. When ever I take that - I itch anyways. So I didn’t think much of it before that fateful Wednesday morning, when I found bugs in the shower. Well, at that point I knew exactly what it was.

So as soon as the drugstore opened; I went and got some lice treatment. I contacted camp and had them check Casper. Sure enough; he had it too. The nurse said he had it pretty bad; although primarily on one side of his head. (The side they obviously didn’t check when he came into camp.) The nurse said she’d "had grandpa lice coming out to greet her" and requested if they could shave Casper’s head. (I’m feeling all itchy just writing this.) I told her - do what you’ve got to. So, they shaved Casper’s head.

Well, I’d spent 4 days going through my own hair and still combing nits out. When I went to get Casper at the end of camp; he’d looked at me and said. "Mommy, I really didn’t want this haircut." So the following day; after four days of messing with my own hair. I shaved my head too. (Little "old school" I know but - it got rid of the lice!) This helped Casper to not feel so badly about his own little bald head. Crazy momma Oakly aint got hair either! Consequently, we both were looking like a couple of cancer patients.

So, sometimes when you try to pull someone out of the mud - you get a little dirty yourself! Anybody ever wonder if Jesus ever had head lice? That question never crossed my mind until this summer.

Well, in the midst of all this chaos, many days of Betty being at our house (some time eating breakfast, lunch and dinner here) and weeks before I even knew about the head lice; I finally called Child Protective. They opened an investigation and neither Betty or Taz were permitted to come down to our house any longer.

Not to say that I haven’t seen them; or that nothing else has happened since. I’ve had to confront all three on different occasions for various things. The question now becomes; how do I continue to show forth the grace of God in all of this? Some times love has to be tough and we are often times called upon to speak the truth in love; even when the truth isn’t pretty.

Ironically, Taz and Betty have come down here since. They both had said they weren’t allowed to talk to me; but I made it quite clear that if you’re down here in my yard - you’re not going to avoid me. They seem to have accepted that and at this point so has Anakin. He apparently has ceased in totally forbidding them from having any contact with us. I still want to help these kids and apparently so does the rest of this community. (They get a lot of help; not just from neighbors, but from the school, community organizations, individuals and even business owners. One antiques store made popcorn every morning, all summer long and primarily for Taz.) Is our helping these kids just further enabling dad to not take responsibility though?

I don’t know - tough questions!
I do know one thing though - there are a lot of people praying for these kids.

If there’s one thing I know,
it’s you were never left alone,
cause you can always call on Jesus’ name.

And if there’s one thing I pray,
it’s Jesus helps you find a way,
to make a change and listen to your heart.

God will take away your pain if you choose to let it go.
If there’s one thing I know.

One thing - by Salah