Why are kids never aware that they’ve got them? Little heads where each hair has lice like the M25 has cars, bob around whispering and giggling, right next to friends, who soon have their own hairway of infestation.

Why do leaflets always show a detailed drawing of a nit? Is it supposed to make us feel better or worse that they are creeping round our child’s and probably our own heads? Are we supposed to check that what we are destroying matches the picture – and what if it doesn’t?

Why is it that every school letter about nits always says that they prefer clean hair as though nits are presented with some kind of menu of heads to choose from? ‘Yes I fancy a clean head wearing chamomile shampoo. How about you darling?’ ‘Sounds lovely darling, and let’s have a nice auburn colour today.’

Is the child who always has nits and is never kept home, ever given one of these letters to take home and is it passed on to the parents? Do they read it and realise it applies to their child? Are their child’s nits actually household pets? Or are they vegans so extreme that they cannot bring themselves to kill a living nit?

Do nits have some kind of nit nav system to help them to find the fastest route from head to head?

Why does the lotion always smell of lemons combined with bleach and urine, and why does it have to stay on for an hour? Is it a type of aversion therapy to encourage regular use of the nit comb in future? Or so that the residual pong warns others to stay away so they don’t catch any surviving nit?