November 14, 2026 — 5:00am
Q: Standing on a train in peak hour, I saw something moving on the scalp of a passenger sitting below me. Imagine my shock when I realised she had head lice. The train was packed and I couldn’t move away. Should I have said something to the lice-hosting passenger? M.F., Albert Park, Vic
Either your eyesight is spectacularly good or these were absolutely massive head lice commuting to work on this lady’s head, some sitting on flaky, dandruff seats, others standing and holding on to hair-shaft grab-bars (pretty much all of them staring at their devices because no one makes lice-to-lice eye-contact any more).
Unfortunately, head lice carry a social stigma. Just the thought of them disgusts people, so it’s not a topic you can bring up in public, like discussing sexually transmitted diseases or Russell Brand. If you’d told this passenger that she has head lice, not only would you have embarrassed her, but the whole train carriage might’ve freaked out. Someone might’ve pulled the emergency brake, the train might’ve stopped mid-station and people might’ve thrown themselves out of windows to sprint to the nearest pharmacy and douse themselves in that medicated lice shampoo that smells like fresh, minty roadworks.
I suppose you could’ve whispered it to her, but then you’d have had to bring your head close to hers and the commuting lice might’ve jumped onto you, changing scalps for the Albert Park line. Maybe it was better to just leave her and her lice to their travelling business, turning around and spending the rest of your trip focusing on the other passengers. Which, if you do have spectacularly good eyesight, was probably a horror show of seeping pores and weeping sores and airborne pathogens drifting out of furry, distended nostrils.
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Source: The Age · Danny Katz
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