Up until I got a phone call from my sister just now I thought that my family had had two good seders. That is until she told me that her children have lice.
The day before the first seder my son's friend's mother called to say that my son's friend had lice. We checked my son but couldn't find any. I checked him again and still can't find any.
But, since my sister called, I am not sure, but I think I found a critter in my head, and maybe an eency weency little louse in my bathroom sink.
There is my cousin's family also to check. We think the lice originated in the public school system in River Heights.
It now seems clear that kugels and matza balls weren't the only thing going around our Seder this year.
In fact, when we got to going over the ten plagues, little did we know how relevant the plague "Kinim" would turn out to be. Nothing like getting a little taste of what it was like in Egypt for the Egyptians!
It's a good thing we were drinking all those cups of wine--otherwise we might have noticed the table jumping.
No wonder Eliyahu wasn't there when we opened the door. Someone must have tipped him off about the lice.
The worst part about this lice business is that we cleaned just before Passover to get all the hametz out the house, but now we are going to have to clean all over again. And my halachic question is, is it better to get the bread crumbs out of the house before the lice or vice versa for Passover?
And I did notice, come to think of it, that one of the traditional Passover cookies we always serve was a little lousier than usual. But, I thought, well hey--Passover baking is never that good.
Now , I'm in a quandary. I don't know what the halachic rules are about cleaning pessedic dishes to ensure there is no lice. And anyway, by the time I figure them out Passover will almost be over. Maybe we should just eat from paper plates?
Under normal circumstances I might have called our handy man to help me inspect for all the potential lice in the house, but our handy man was at our Seder, so there's no point having him over in the house.
The biggest joke in all of this is on my brother and sister and law, who only came in for a couple of days and just flew back to Toronto. Timing in life is everything. They spent a full weekend playing with all the kids! And chances are that they've taken home a few little extra mementos from the trip here.
Now that I think of it during the first Seder my sister in law was commenting on how much she liked my hair long. Little did she know, that for her sake, it would have been far better had I gotten my hair cut before the Seder.
And my friend Dr. Joseph Rosenberg just phoned this afternoon since he's in town for Passover and his dad Dr. Albert Rosenberg is being honoured at Miserecordia Hospital on Saturday night (Mazel Tov Albert!). Joseph wanted to get together with my whole family-- I wonder what he'll want to do now. Maybe I will wear a large dark sun hat and not tell him anything!
In any event, ever since my sister called I've been itchin to write this article.
Happy Passover to you all!
p.s.-I just found some lice treatment shampoo in our cupboard but unfortunately it expired Passover 5772.
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