Sparkling Pesticide

🎧 With Audio - The True Story of Sherlock Holmes And The Pesticide Farce

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There were three major players in the pesticide farce: myself, my friend Katie, and Robert Downey Junior.

If you have young children, you may know of KP24. One child in every school year always seems to arrive for class riddled with headlice, their parents apparently oblivious to the issues they’re causing, and the napalm of choice among many parents is KP24.

In the summer of 2009, I’d been combing and clearing my daughter’s repeatedly itchy scalp for many long weeks. Every other day I’d use the “earth-friendly” not so dismally poisonous potions on her long, lustrous locks, conditioning afterwards with thick white sludge in the hopes of suffocating the creatures and minimising hair damage. Despite my repeated hopeful hints, she insisted her hair must remain long. Not one inch shorter would do.

So all that summer I combed until my arms were tired and my patience was thin. We’d win a skirmish or two, but every few days she’d return home reinfected, undoubtedly from the same source.

I don’t like KP24. It’s toxic stuff, the smell alone warns you of that. But in a fit of desperation I decided one day to just buy the awful goop, and napalm the little sods. At the same time, I purchased a bottle of some sort of B group supplement. Like many mothers, my love vampires had sucked me dry and left me a depleted husk, and I was hopeful the vitamins would help with foggy tiredness. I like to blame that foggy tiredness in part for what happened next.

There’s an accurately named Giant Chemist at Harbourtown on the Gold Coast, and I dropped in there to make these purchases before rushing to the movies on that fine morning. Staggering through the foyer of Reading Cinemas, I was rapidly one thumb texting my friend Katie. Remember one thumb texting? Back in the days before we all carried a mini-computer in our handbags?

I was a little late for our rendezvous, and already entering the darkened theatre, as her reply came in. Robert Downey Junior’s rumpled, fascinating face was large on the screen, unexpectedly plausible in the part of a pugilistic Sherlock.

Katie, it turned out, had had to cancel. So I blame Mr Downey and Kate both in equal measure for the following.

There was a lot going on in the thought carousel as I rustled down the rows of the almost empty theatre, and tried to organise myself in the cinematic darkness. While carefully arraying my bags on the absent Katie’s seat, a lonely thought wandered through my head “I should take some of that B group vitamin stuff. Right away”. God knows why I had to take it right then and there but, never one to think before leaping, I was screwing the cap off before Sherlock had time to finish his soliloquy. In the flickering gloom, I remember briefly noting “I must have accidentally bought the liquid stuff again”. What followed next serves me right for choosing to drink from the bottle.

I had time to register how unbelievably awful was the flavour and think how it tasted even worse than I remembered, before the realisation hit me.

In the gloom, I’d glugged back the pesticide instead.

Have you ever had something so alien on your tongue you just know it’s never meant to be consumed? As it slithered past my epiglottis, I knew something was terribly wrong. KP24 tastes much the way petrol would, I imagine, though I’ve at least managed to avoid drinking petrol thus far. I had taken a fairly big swig, and now I sat there, stunned. What should I do? What on earth should I do?

Lugging my bags with me, I went straight to the toilet, sipping from my water bottle, and attempted to make myself vomit it all up.

The foam. So much foam. So much texture, taste and foam. My impersonation of a rabid dog went on for some moments. I then moved to the sink and started scrubbing at my tongue with toilet paper. A passing cinema-goer, availing herself of the ladies, glanced at me askance.

It was all to no avail. I could not rid myself of the taste, or the bubbles, or the burping. I finally decided to read the bottle for instructions on accidental ingestion.

If swallowed, do NOT induce vomiting, it read dishearteningly. Call Poison Control.

I considered that for one brief moment, then decided that rather than explain to a total stranger I’d swigged KP24 in the cinema, I’d just die of embarrassment. Such is life.

Defeated, I slumped back to my seat, absent-mindedly continuing to wipe at my tongue and lips. I decided to text a few friends for sympathy and advice. Their replies were affirming and compassionate. “Oh my God!” “Call Poison Control you idiot!” “What the fuck?” “ Who does that?” “Only you, Alison, only you”.

I texted my husband and told him I wanted a secular funeral, but nevertheless I’d still like Amazing Grace on the bagpipes, and went back to the movie.

In the event, I got a massive headache, raging diarrhoea and everything tasted peculiar for a few days. A friend unwillingly confirmed that my armpits still smelled vaguely of KP24 three days later. But I escaped otherwise unscathed, and hopefully having learned a lesson about not guzzling anything straight from the bottle or consuming things I can’t actually see.

Although now I come to think of it, later the same year there was the sorbitol incident with the chewy fruit lollies, which also took place at Reading Cinemas Harbourtown.

I had to return and watch Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Junior again the following week. For some reason, I’d missed large chunks of the plot.

A few weeks later, the child who had been bringing her pet headlice to school every day moved away, eliciting a great sigh of relief from me.

And about two weeks after that, my daughter decided the time was finally right to have her hair cut short.

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Originally published on Medium. Copyright Alison Tennent 2021, all rights reserved. Scottish by birth, upbringing and bloodline, Australian by citizenship.