pick nits

And so we get scenes in which they dose one another with herbal tinctures; they pick nits out of one another’s hair; they kill a chicken for dinner; they clean the pelt of a rabbit; they tell stories, like one involving a crow, a mouse and a sausage.

“We all pick nits with this decision, with that decision, why didn’t you say this, why didn’t you do that. Twenty years of a whole lot of people have led us to this point. And we said we’re going to stop,” he said.

You can always pick nits with any manager and second-guess strategic decisions.

“My friend’s husband once said he would just get us a nit farm, since all we do is sit and pick nits all day,” she said.

And while we are equipped to daydream of such luxury for ourselves, or to pick nits with Fellowes’ staging while we swoon at his stars in their gorgeous firmament, we are also the heirs to those who did all the work, those who built the Downtons and the plantations.