A Comb! A Comb! My Kingdom For A Comb!

It isn’t often I go shopping for basic functional man items but whenever I do I’m always amazed at how difficult they are to find.

Take yesterday for example.

Over the weekend my eyes and intellect finally registered the fact that the comb with which I daily impose order upon my glossy barnet (admirably fulsome given my age) had seen better days. The teeth barely had 2 millimetres clearance from the years of grey scum, scurf, and abandoned follicles that had built up around the base. I swear to God there was a whole eco-system occurring in there. I think the reason I’m never plagued overmuch with nits is that they can get all the sustenance they require from my comb.

Anyway, despite using this comb quite blindly for years it finally dawned on me that maybe dragging a mouldy nit farm across my scalp every day was not doing my image as an International Man Of Mystery much good at all.

It was time to purchase a new one.

Yesterday was elected as the day to perform this task.

Now, you’d think it would be a nice, quick, easy job just buying a cheap plastic comb, wouldn’t you?

But do you think I could find one?

Plainly my consumerist instincts are not wired up correctly for menial shopping items. Computers, CDs, books, assorted gadgetry, dodgy DVDs... I can name and recommend dozens of shops for these. But where does one buy a comb?

I figured Tesco would be a good bet. I mean they sell everything else.

After 15 minutes of trudging up and down the aisles empty-handed I came to the conclusion that actually Tesco sell hundreds of items that you might need but don’t actually stock the items that you do. They’re the retail equivalent of cable TV – thousands of channels but nothing you actually want to watch.

I then tried Boots. Surely Boots would sell combs. They’re big on hair care and cosmetics after all. But no. Hair brushes. Hair nets. Hair bands and an amazing array of lip gloss. But I couldn’t see a damned man-comb anywhere.

I then got desperate. I tried all the cheap shops. I tried the hardware stores. I was even tempted to nip into Accessorize but the be-booted mini-skirted young things flitting about inside terrified me. Curse them and their freshly powdered décolletages!

Where are all the old flea markets when you need them, eh? They always sold combs. You just headed for the cheap wallet and purse store and there they’d be. All lined up and shiny. The Brylcreem freshly washed off them.

Oh yes. The markets have all been priced out of the consumer world by the likes of Tesco et al.

Well, I defy anyone to buy a nice cheap wallet at Tesco.

Anyway. Eventually I headed into Superdrug and they saved the day. Amongst the curling tongs and bobble-ended hair brushes they had a cheap unisex comb for 58 pence.

So the purchase was made and my hair, as a consequence, is extremely fly-away and glossy today.

My old comb, quite logically, is in the bin.

Along with my Tesco clubcard.

Bring Back The Nit Nurse

This week my household has enjoyed a singularly itchy encounter with nits, care of my boy’s infant school. The poor lad’s scalp has been a moveable feast for a whole army of little head lice and their chomping offspring.

We have staunchly countered their invasion with copious administrations of hair conditioner and that old standby the nit comb. To be sure we remove every colony of the nit nation Karen and I have also submitted ourselves to regular nit grooming.

I’m proud to say that not only was I nit free but my hair is now lovely and glossy and has a sheen not unlike satin seen by moonlight.

Now, as problems go nit picking (ho ho) is a pretty small one and easily dealt with though it is a mite (pun!) inconvenient to have to submit to the nit removal regime every night.

All of this could have been avoided or the chances of it at least lessened, however, if the school employed that hardy bastion of anti-nit warfare, the Nit Nurse. We used to have regular visits from this rubber gloved lady of lice destruction when I was at school and all occurrences of nits were nicely contained and quickly dealt with as a consequence.

My boy’s school however does not utilize the Nit Nurse – maybe this is a national policy, who knows? – as they feel it draws negative attention to the condition and stigmatizes those who develop it. What rot. So instead of nit outbreaks being stamped upon quickly and efficiently they are left until the whole class gets infected. Marvelous. That’s one way of “leveling the playing field” I guess. Now no-one need feel picked on just because they’ve got nits… cos everybody’s got ‘em.

I can’t help feeling that this is a sad case of political correctness over commonsense. It’s also surely just a marketing problem. Sell the Nit Nurse to people in a positive light and you remove the stigma along with the nits. Simple.

And what stigma is there anyway? My boy has been very proud of his head-based nit farm and has eagerly been telling everybody about it.

Well, those who have stood still long enough...