© 2005 Brian Hodges - Please do not remove the copyright from this essay

always felt inferior to my friends in elementary school because I could never sweat adequately. We all played sports, and sweating was considered a sign of athleticism and studliness. I'm not sure why really. I guess we needed something to separate the men from the boys and we were all too short to slam-dunk. We'd be outside playing basketball in late March and already the other guys' faces looked like glasses of iced tea on a hot day. They'd pivot, flipping their heads to the side real quick, and the sweat would fling in all directions. Awesome. Meanwhile, I'd be playing Little League in the dead heat of July and my brow would just be starting to dampen - and I was a catcher.

I'll never forget the day I finally became a man. I was at basketball camp in the sweltering hundred-percent humidity of August with about a hundred other boys. We were being coached by a dozen middle-aged men who had never forgiven themselves for missing that final shot at the buzzer twenty years earlier, and they were serving out their self-imposed penance by making the rest of us run laps to the point of stroke. After about my hundredth suicide sprint of the afternoon, I was hunched over trying to convince myself that the backboard was not in fact melting, when I felt what I thought was a fly crawling down my face. I waved my hand at it, but it didn't fly away. Despite the fact that my heart was beating hard enough to pop the blisters on my feet, I smiled letting the solitary bead roll all the way down to my jaw, refusing to wipe it away. I came in first on every training circuit they threw at us that afternoon.

Any of a thousand childhood clichés could have been thrown at me that afternoon: "be careful what you wish for enjoy it while it lasts don't be in such a hurry to grow up if you keep doing that it'll make you go blind…" How I long for the days when I couldn't muster up enough sweat to warrant even a Kleenex. Now I find myself soaking through jeans and multiple t-shirts on any given day in February. It doesn't take much. All I have to do is walk to the car in the morning and realize I forgot my cell phone. Halfway up the six steps to my apartment and the entire area beneath my backpack is already sticking to my skin.

Five years ago I thought baby powder was something you only used on, you know… babies. These days I have to walk around like Pigpen's twin brother just to absorb enough moisture to prevent yellow belly button stains from forming on my shirt. It seems pointless to take even lukewarm showers anymore. Standing in a room with that much humidity pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the day. Towels become useless. Undershirts only provide a temporary shield. I stand in front of the fan for fifteen minutes in the vain hope that the Law of Evaporation will somehow combat the Law of the Sweaty Bastard. And that law states: The volume of sweat emitted shall be directly proportional to the energy expressed attempting to remain dry.

Summer's the worst, though not because of the higher temperatures. Apparently it's also a really fun time for people I know to get married. That means getting all dressed up in pants, long-sleeve shirts and jackets at a time when light colors (read: "colors that cannot conceal armpit stains") are in style. All I can do is try to stand perfectly still so that there is always a good half-inch between my skin and any fabric. I finally started driving to weddings in just my boxer shorts with the A/C on full blast. I get dressed in the parking lot then refuse to sit down in my khaki pants all day long.

I don't get it. I thought only fat people had this problem. I've been trying to get up to my target weight since puberty - which began, coincidentally, that summer at basketball camp. And the worst part is that it's now become a hereditary issue. My one-year-old daughter is a fit and trim twenty pounds and already she sweats when she eats. Her beautiful shiny red hair becomes a brown matted mess an hour after her bath. Poor kid. I really hope this makes her the envy of all her friends in sixth-grade, but somehow I don't think girls have the same priorities as boys.