Nit-picking. Delousing. Welcome to a great vacation.

Kim spent the day sanitizing the apartment -- washing the curtains, vacuuming the couch cushions, trying to rid the place of lice as much as possible.

I picked up my parents from the airport, then promptly led them to the apartment, where they patiently spent Day 1 of a 6-day trip to Spain watching and waiting as Kim searched pharmacies for the right anti-lice hair medication, translated the instructions using an online translator, and washed a dozen or more loads of laundry. (My parents off-handledly commented that they don't feel like they're in Madrid, they feel like they're in an apartment.)

"I feel like I'm being such a bad host," Kim said. "But I'd feel like an even worse host if I gave them lice."

She has spent the last two hours infusing her hair with as much toxic chemical as possible, then combing through every square inch.

My hair is healthy, but I'm doing the same, just as a precautionary measure.

End result? Looks like she's almost in the clear -- we found less than a dozen bugs.

It also looks like I'm completely in the clear and never caught lice from her, which is surprising, considering that we've been sharing pillows. But its also reassuring -- it means we probably nipped this problem in the bud at an early stage.

And now that I've doused my hair with anti-lice medication and throughly cleaned it, I KNOW I'm sanitized and healthy, and I feel good about that.