Lice and Mice

I'm watching the episode of "The Office" in which a whole lot of them get lice. Meredith is initially believed to have started it, and she ends up shaving her head. Then it ends up that Pam started it. Meredith wants someone to shave Pam's head. Dwight Schrute wears some sort of HASMAT suit to avoid getting lice. He was traumatized from having lice when he was seven, and he believes the reason he was picked on as a child was solely because of having lice.

Looking at Meredith with her shaved head caused me to realize how much one of my mom's former co-workers, a somewhat malevolent woman, looks like Meredith.

My mind is wandering strangely from lice to mice, which reminds me of a poem that my brother and I had to recite for the diocese's Poetry and Prose Festival when we were in kindergarten. The parochial school we attended in kindergarten and second grade was really into the twin thing. Whenever there was a talent contest or something even more lame like a poetry and prose event, the head honchos at the school always wanted my brother and me to perform together. Our single most tasteless performance was surely the time they dressed us up as Ike and Tina Turner and had us sing along and dance (we both danced somewhat like African American children) to "Proud Mary." They didn't black our faces at least but they did put us in wigs with major Afros. It was all the eighth grade teacher's idea, and no one mentioned it to our parents because they would have put a stop to it.

Anyway, I located the lame poem about mice.

I think mice are rather nice;
Their tails are long, their faces small;
They haven't any chins at all.
Their ears are pink, their teeth are white,
They run about the house at night;
They nibble things they shouldn't touch,
and no one seems to like them much,
but I think mice are nice!
-Rose Fyleman

Have you ever read a more lame poem in your life. It's at least as bad as anything E. E. Cummings [capitals intended] ever wrote. Furthermore, it expresses a sentiment that is pretty much a polar opposite to the one I actually hold. I hate rodents. Guinea pigs are the only rodent I can even look at without developing a serious case of the willies, and even Guinea pigs I only tolerate when they're inside cages.

My mom hates rodents, too, but she had a favorite movie from her childhood that was about a rat, and she had it on a pirated Beta tape. Actually it was two separate movies, Ben and Willard. Ben was the sequel where Ben avenges his late pal Willard's death by leading his band of rats to take over New York City. The Michael Jackson song "Ben" came from the movie of the same name. My mom had it transferred to a DVD and had us watch it once, thinking for some reason that we were as sick as she was at our ages and that we might actually enjoy it. We both had nightmares for weeks.

I'm now rambling in the way my grandfather does anytime he's allowed in front of a microphone. Time for bed.

This blog is ended. Go now in peace to love and serve the Lord and to avoid lice and mice, and not necessarily in that order.