FRIENDOS, I am a sweaty man.
I inherited this from my father, who was a deeply unhealthy man who could often be found eating entire jars of peanut butter at the kitchen table at 3AM. Seriously, we had to hide the peanut butter from him, but he always found it. When my father did chores around the house, he would tie a bandanna around his forehead to keep the sweat out of his eyes, because that man was one enormous sweat gland.
And so am I, despite the fact that I don’t eat entire jars of peanut butter. I can only conclude that this general air of sweatiness is inherited. The Somers genes are certainly miraculous. I try to imagine what possible evolutionary advantage this level of sweat could possibly afford, and the best I can come up with is that it lubricates us in terrifying situations so we can squeeze through extremely narrow spaces. This makes sense, as we Somers’ are clearly a prey species.
In the modern world, however, where we Somers’ are allowed to burrow deep within the comforting fluff of civilization and are thus spared from most forms of predation, this full-body dampness serves little purpose except to make me appear consistently nervous or consistently on the verge of a heart attack.
IN WHICH I MAKE MY WIFE UNCOMFORTABLE
There are people in this world who enjoy eating outside, al fresco, no matter the temperature or the sunlight situation. God love these people, these happy idiots. I am not one of them. I sweat under arctic conditions, and sitting in the sun while eating hot food (or cold food, or ice cubes, or just breathing in a steady and unalarming manner) causes me to perspire wildly.
My brother, Yan, is someone who can sit in full sunlight when it’s 105 degrees out and eat a piping hot bowl of pasta without complaint. Just thinking about that makes me sweat through my shirt. How this genetic disparity happened, I don’t know, though it supports my long, deep suspicion that my brother and I are not actually related.
The other day my wife, The Duchess, and I were sitting outside in the sun, for some reason, having lunch. This was not my choice, as I am well aware of my dislike for sweating, or being outside, or eating my own lunch like a sucker instead of having it fed to me like the emperor I was born to be. This was, in other words, a triumph of The Duchess’ will. Meaning she insisted.
It was extremely hot, and so my body did what it always done when I eat in the heat: It assumed I was being force-fed by Imperial Torturers and began to shut down in self-defense. This is also, apparently, part of my genetic code, and the reason that the Somers family has survived into 2020 where so many other famous families have not. There are no more Caesars or Plantagenets, friends, but the world is lousy with Somers’.
My wife soon realized the true cost of her victory. Staring at me in horror, she declared in a terrified voice that we would never dine outside again, nor speak of the incident. I went home and toweled off.
The Doom of Jeff
Being a Sweat Person doesn’t weigh very heavily on me, normally. This is because I am also a Recluse Person who hardly ever leaves the house. Under normal circumstances I can sweat my ass off in private and never have to explain to people that no, I am not having a heart attack, this is just how I am.
Someday, of course, I’ll have my brain transferred to a cyborg chassis (like in a certain book) and sweat will no longer be a problem. Existential dread? Possibly, but not sweat.