Friday, May 6, 2011

No Sweat, No Problem.... Not Really!

So, everyone's heard the saying "no sweat', right? It means that something is easy, no problem, no worries, right? No bubbles no troubles!
Actually, it can be a bit of a problem. I have something called Anhidrosis, which is a condition in which I do not sweat. At all. People tell me to drink water, or run around and get hot, and they think I'll sweat that way.
Nope.
I'm a little like a car with a broken water pump; The water's in there, full to the brim, but it's not doing anything. Just like a car with a broken water pump, I overheat. Very easily. I was first diagnosed with this in April 2008, when I went into my physician's office in the first stages of heatstroke. I was fully hydrated, sloshing in fact, and the high temperature for the day was 58 degrees.
I have had steroid treatments before that caused my anhidrosis to go away, into a kind of remission, apparently, because it keeps coming back. Like right now. The nicest day we've had so far this year, Sunny and a high of about 73 degrees, and I'm overheating. My last steroid treatment didn't work, aside from making me sleep even less than before (and I usually average around 4 hours a night). So, today at work, as I delivered the mail, I controlled my heat the only way I know how: I hose off my shirt and wear it wet so as to simulate perspiring and the evaporation effect.
That's how we get to the funny part.
I don't want to hose myself off, because then I wind up walking about in wet underwear, and the only words I can think of to describe that are squidgy and squodgy. Neither of them sound like fun to me. How about you?
I didn't think so.
So, I take off my shirt, hose it off , wring it out and put it on. I'm 5'10", weigh 215 lbs, and shave my head. I imagine the poor woman who was in the house. She hears her hose go on, and she figures it must be the kids walking home from school, playing with her hose as they pass by. She jumps to the window, peeks out, and comes face to face with something that looks a bit like a low-rent Mr. Clean, shirtless and wringing something out on her lawn.
All I know is the just appeared at the window, staring out.
I finger-waved.
Her expression got a little weird, and she backed slowly away from the window. Kind of sideways, out of view. Once she was gone, and all I had to see was the blank window, the shade went down. Slowly. I never saw her hand, just the shade going down.
There's humor almost everywhere, my friends.
...think I lost a Christmas tip there?
*shrug*

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