Sweat, Plain and Simple...

We've had a couple of fairly cool days for August in the south. Not cold enough I have to start eating words because some time in the past I'd said, "It will be a cold day in August when that happens." But nice enough that the tom cats are happy to lay on the lawn chairs out in the back yard and not cry at the back door to come inside.

We've had our share of ultra hot summers when it hits three digits by nine o'clock in the morning and I do not bask in the loveliness of this cooler weather and forget what it could feel like when I venture out the back door to check on the morning glory blossoms. There were times when I wondered if the temperature would pop the top off the thermometer hanging on the garage door. In those days I thought seriously about investing both of my quarters in the paper fan industry.

Remember those old kind like we used at tent revivals in the middle of a hot summer? The louder and longer the preacher talked about hell being seven times hotter than the hundred plus degrees we were experiencing in that tent, the faster the folks fanned.

Just thinking about it still gives me a case of acute hives. And to make matters worse the 23rd Psalm was most usually printed on one side of the fan and an advertisement for the local funeral home on the other side. Make your choice...and do it quick!

But even the cardboard fan stapled to a popsickle stick wouldn't help around here on a really hot day. The air conditioner, putting in overtime and working its poor self to death, can't keep the pure old sweat out of my eyes.

Granny always said that a lady perspired when it was really hot and if she just had a little moisture under her nose then she was "dewing up." I believe she was talking about those cute little tennis players who wear the flippy tailed skirts and matching head bands. The liquid that comes form their skinny, muscular bodies is just salty water. It can be washed off with a nice cool shower and good smelling soap.

Evidently I am not a lady!

When I go out into that triple digit weather, my fat cells begin to melt and it's not totally unlike the days when Mama rendered lard on butchering day. If you got any of that grease on your hands while you were squeezing the cracklings through the ricer to get the very last of the grease, it did not come off with cool water and good smelling soap.

That's me!

What beads up on me is as slick as lard and it takes a hot shower and lots of that soap that is guaranteed to cut grease to get it off. So I'm not going outside unless the thermometer swears to me that it's not one degree over eighty!

What about all y'all? Are you hot weather folks? Do you perspire, sweat or dew up?