The best laid plans of lice and men..

I know I know, its been a awhile and most of you have probably stop reading this :D ... but meh, felt like writing and sharing for the first time in ages now.

Couple days ago, I was in a tutorial class when one of my classmates stood in front of the class to talk about a subject that they felt had an impact on their childhood way back. As I was imagining and nodding through the usual answers I expected (divorce, friends, new school, death of the Mr.Fluffy) a certain case grabbed by ear, and possibly my locked, unconscious memory that I think I repressed way back then.

This classmate was talking about her experience with lice, and how it affected her childhood (pretty obvious, since she still remembers it) and how it would have been different if it happened at different age. But that wasn't the interesting part that piqued my interest, the part where that story bought back my memory of the experience I've had with lice was.

Thought I can't remember or even had recalled any of this ever before, I guess she unlocked the password to this area of my subconscious. Though I can't say I remember it like yesterday, I think I can remember it like it happened 15 years ago. The story you're about to read might scare the bejesus out of you, or it might not. Either way, I'm still writing it so read on (or don't, if you're NST and looking to slap libel on anything that blogs).

15 years ago (or not), I was just a wee lad living a a much simpler world where we have great songs like Theme from Ghostbusters, not crappy ones like 'hip-hop' today and where we have proper heroes like Thundercats, not lame ones like ... well, if they are lame, they are not suited to be called heroes.

Back then, my family shared a single storey, small and crampy house with my auntie and her family as well, thus effectively disqualifying us from ever appearing on MTV Cribs. While all of that looked bad, I actually enjoyed my childhood as a part of it. But thats another story for another day, isn't it?

Anyway, one day I was playing as usual with my cousins when one of the oldest son of my auntie came back with his hair now gold in color. I was shocked. It's one thing to see a chinese with gold hair, but it was more shocking to see a dark colored person (yes, he was adopted) with gold hair, thus the term "hair coloring" was introduced to me for the first time. Well, rather the term "hair coloring" was enforced on me for the first time.

You see, as my cousin started to look more outstanding then he already is, he began to drive this idea into his other cousins that coloring your hair makes you cool, and me being the youngest in the group at the time, automatically gets to be the very first person to be 'cooled' up.

So they set upon to find a hair coloring product in the supermarket near our house, and a quick look at the price reminded us that none of us are actually rich enough to feed ourselves, more so to buy a hair coloring product. With that, the idea was put to rest. For about 3 seconds, that is.

When another cousin said she know another way of coloring my hair, the motion was set. I was asked to lie down in on the newspaper covered floor, then I heard lots of mumbling, giggling and occasionally the expression "oohhhh, ok ok" and if I'm lucky, feel some liquid splatter across my face. When it was all done, I was told to lie down for "awhile" in order to it it dry. But then a problem came up when i went to wash my hair as ordered, it was flowing yellow. My cousins, as you might have expected now, had used watercolor as a substitute to the real stuff.

While many others would have given up, not this bunch. As if possessed by *insert inspiring movie about never give up attitudes (I personally recommend Rocky)*, they went back to the drawing boards and tried to figure out something new. They came up with crayon this time, and instead of attacking the fringes, the went straight to the source. They colored straight into my scalp, hoping that somehow they'll figure out why somewhere in between the procedure.

They never did though, and until one of my cousins finally evolved one degree smarter, they finally stopped. Twice failed, they were getting desperate as it it was near dinner time and we already spend more than 3 hours on this. Thus one final way was proposed, if this failed we'll all act as if it never happened and no harm done. This time, not only more watercolor will be used, but also the involvement of a hair-dryer.

At time of this statement release, we're sad to inform that the procedure was going smoothly when an accident happened, thus rendering the procedure a failure. The lice problem has since been dealt with, but I did have a hard time explaining why the lices came with different colors.

A better plan, I said. We needed a better plan.