The One Where You Lose Respect For Me

Every now and then in life you find yourself at a crossroads. A place where you must make a decision, no matter how difficult it is. And sometimes that decision requires action on your part that you never thought you would take, but until you find yourself in that particular situation....well you just don't know what you would do.

When I realized that my children had lice, trust me, all I wanted to do was leave. Leave and never ever come back. But it's illegal to just leave your children alone in a hotel so I did what any other well seasoned expat mother would do. First, I ordered a glass of wine from room service. Then I sat quietly on the edge of the bed and came up with a plan. And that was the moment of truth. I decided on a course of action and realized once I started, there would be no turning back.

I called housekeeping to have all the sheets and towels replaced. I sent out every piece of laundry that we had including blanky, lamby, and puppy. Thankfully madame is never questioned here so no explanation was necessary.

And then I did something that I will forever be ashamed of. I grabbed a comb and picked as many bugs as I could out of that beautiful blond hair, and I ran my children down to the salon and asked them to shave their heads. I sat there with a pit in my stomach hoping no one would notice. And they didn't.

As we walked back through the lobby as usual a hundred people stopped to pat the boys on their heads. Truly I would have liked to warn people but they wouldn't have understood me anyway. So we held our heads high, pushed through the crowd and made it back to our room where I did NOT call down for a second glass of wine.

Don't judge me.....until you have walked two little lice infested bald white kids through a sea of indian people patting them and taking their picture....please....do not judge me.