Fall must be lice season in New York because kids are being sent home in droves to have their heads checked and deloused in record numbers, it seems. Record since last year, anyway. My daughter was caught up in the latest purge and I tried to assure her she was not alone: our neighbor, my shrink, the man in the moon. All their kids were itchng and scratching.

So Franny and I paid a repeat visit to Abigail Rosenfeld, Brooklyn’s premier nit-picker (for all those who have asked, her number is 718/435-2592). Abigail lives on an Orthodox block in Flatbush and I would say that she has so many children she doesn’t know what to do, but that’s not true. Clearly the answer is “have more” since there was a new baby since we saw her last fall (Shlamme? she translated it as “Sammy” and he was about the cutest thing either my daughter or I had ever seen) and another one on the way. She had been hit with so many requests in recent weeks that she was sending people down the block to other Orthodox moms who did the same thing.

Who knew? Turns out there is competition for this timeless, tiring, time-consuming job (you need a ocean of Pantene, a fine-tooth comb and endless patience) which revealed itself as she quizzed Franny about the people who had come to her school to help the nurse check heads. “Lice Advice?” she said. “I gave that woman her start. I was hoping another friend of mine would get that job.” She wished her competitor no ill, she assured me. But clearly she had favorites.

Franny was clean, btw. A few nits. Now we’re on to the endless washing and drying of everything in her room. I offered to do a Freaky-Friday role-reversal with my wife once — I would run her magazine while she did the domestic scientist/writer/teacher bit — and she passed. She couldn’t handle the scene at Abby’s, I bet, what with beleagured parents shlepping their kids in from Hastings and toddlers running amok on the floor (one of them asked me if I wanted to kiss the Torah, which smelled distinctly of Doritos). But she didn’t get to see that baby.