Out of Kilter – by Ken Carpenter

Sweatless lips and odorous feet, and give them something good to eat…

I had a short but interesting message on my answering machine last week. A mysterious woman told me “A story for the newspaper; the ability to sweat.”

That was it, and I admit at first that I could not figure out an angle to approach such a subject without fear of the outcome serving as a sleeping potion to anyone with the nerve to read it all. Gritting my teeth, I felt obligated to head to the internet to dredge up all the sweaty goods I could find.

By the time I got to the websites that dealt with actually perspiration information, I was a bit of a sweat myself. I could swear sometimes that the human body is made of rubber.

I was soon astounded to learn that the average Homo Sapien has 2.6 million sweat glands. I would have bet good money that I didn’t have more than 2.5 million, even on my greasiest days. Yes, I must admit, every single one of my beady little glands works to perfection.

A normal person living in a cooler climate can produce one liter of sweat per hour. If that same individual moves to a hot area, they can be pumping out two to three liters per hours withing six weeks. Some wells don’t put out much more than that.

There are two kinds of sweat. Your basic garden-variety sweat and the other kind that has fat particles and proteins included in it. The secnd kind is only secreted from the armpits and the crotch area, and I will attempt to explain in a civilized manner why that is important.

It is important becuase some folks stink, and fatty sweat is at least partiallly to blame.

You see, humans are a walking cesspool of bacteria, whether anybody likes it or not. Even those with a phobia for cleanliness cannot remain bacteria-free. And as luck would have it, bacteria has to eat and sweatfat soup is their favorite dish.

No big deal, you might say, let ’em eat. But the problem arises after they eat, for they then have the audacity to excrete the wastes of their dinner right where they live. The cads!

It is true, bacteriahas not one shred of decency. It is also true that some people’s bacteria has a lot less decency than others, which is why there are smelly ones among us.

I am not pointing any fingers, for my tribe of bacteria has been known to occasionally party up a storm.

Feet have the reputation of being the skunk of the family, with good reason. Each one has 250,000 sweat glands and each one can happily brew up a pint of sweat per day!

And those facts to the tight enclosure socks and shoes provide, and it is a veritable Frenzied buffet for those voracious bacteria most of us will deny having.

Two quick foot stories, and I will let you all get back to your dinner.

An old friend of mine once threw his rotten sneakers out on the porch and a crony spied three dead bees in them the next morning. Mass suicide if ever I saw it.

Aas a child, I use to sleep out under the neighbor’s weeping willow with five or six other kids. Every morning all but one of us would find our shoes back on my porch courtesy of my ever-helpful dogs.

The last pair of shoes, which we always insisted be pitched at least 75 feet from the tree, would never be touched. The hounds would not get within ten feet of them, and each one of them would gladly roll in a pile of any animal’s droppings at any opportunity. They know death when they smell it.

That is all I care to share about sweat for now and I want to thank my unknown use for the inspiration.

All of you who are furiously scratching your bacteria ridden pits may want to mention her in your prayers tonight too.

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