The Return of Licehead

What is it about advertising one’s status on Facebook that elicits the most hackneyed minutiae, drooling from the minds of dunderheads and intelligentsia alike? Somehow the empowering web – once robust tool of educators and military men – has made armchair idiots of us all. Nothing short of a week-long stint in the orgasmatron could presumably trump the joys we hype like, say, “cooking rice” or “watching a slasher flick,” emblazoned in proud bold text on our profile pages. With varying degree, many friends (ahem, acquaintances) slumming in the social network ghetto have felt compelled to tout the banalities of shopping, vacation, neighborhood voyeurism, or whatever; reduced to a class of special needs children struggling with the details of a "getting to know me" introduction.

Approaching this in my congenial manner, I quickly flirted with the shameless MVD Is… “dealing with a terrible pornography addiction,” before mulling over the slightly more muted and relatively concise “smoking crack.” Better sense taking hold – visualizing a potential DEA raid or a Christian fundamentalist torching of this love den – my end result was the comparatively innocuous: “contemplating a shower and full delousing.” Within minutes, several contacts believed (a) I’d been hanging with the dregs of society while rubbing against feral animals and emptying flea traps over my head, and (b) I am somehow proud to have insects living and breeding in my hair as a result of some very poor decisions. If the rumors are even half true about employers scanning the internet for drunken (or naked or breast feeding) photos and imprudent postings, I’m going to have one hell of a time re-entering the working class tagged as some reckless untrustworthy licebag.

And suddenly I’m that child ruthlessly yanked out of class by the school nurse, immediately following the dreaded popsicle-stick hair test. Seconds later, I’ve assumed my seat of shame next to the kid with the stinky locker (the one that reeks like fromage), the chess club (all of ‘em), and the immigrant from some God forsaken backwater who buys his friends with pesos. Yup, this is fantastic company, stewing at that last cafeteria table with a select handful of serial masturbators, and just waiting to get my ass kicked and lunch stolen, again and again and again. Groundhog Day ad infinitum. Good thing I can hold my own in chess.

Even if I did have lice, why the cold shoulder? Would you detest me if I had to soak my head in bleach for four hours a day and burn my clothing, or set ablaze my overpriced home – my pride and joy, shelter to my family for which I slaved mercilessly in the trenches to marginally afford – in the wake of its newfound uninsurable status? What if my wife made me sleep in the car for months? It’s only a coupe. And bad hygiene aside, this isn’t a societal gaffe in the magnitude of Ozzy Osbourne’s crazy train diet of birds, or worse, Kim Thayil’s predisposition to feast on children. Lice happens. Truth be told, I did find my entire online exchange rather humorous until a buddy’s wife reminded me, and might I say quite sternly and publically, that I was “in her car” and “around her children” very recently, thus demanding an immediate admission of infestation, hat in hand. In other words, she was no more than seconds away from trucking over to the 24 hour Costco for a six-pack of RID shampoo. Unbeknownst to them, bathtime for those kids was about to take a dire turn into uncharted waters. And as much as I’d love to keep stirring the pot, to hold that joke in my back pocket for another day, I do like her husband and would hate to hear that he’d been forcibly shorn of all hair. All hair. You see where we’re going with this. Not good. So I came clean.

Oh, and the “soul patch” I’ve grown does not automatically = gay porn, as another poster so broodingly opined. Once again, Facebook exacts its revenge on the innocent. Just so we understand each other completely, if you happen to catch me on your DVR in those less noble of circumstances, (a) please don’t post to YouTube (recall I’m still searching for employment), and (b) stop recording gay porn. Immediately. After all, I most likely know your spouse. Ya damn filthy pervert.