I’ve been sweating bullets in front of a hardworking (but fairly useless) window fan on a hot, Santa Monica day. Usually the So Cal weather is nice and dry, as humidity is one of the devils I ran from when leaving the Midwest for the West Coast, but it seems to have followed me. When I feel the drops of sweat fall from my underbreastical and hit my first belly roll, I get upset. It’d be one thing if I was doing push ups or sit ups or some other kind of “ups,” but not when I’m just SITTING here at my old computer, only moving my fingers to type, and occasionally extending the arm slightly to lift of a cold Miller Lite. These aren’t the type of actions that should result in sweating.

As my forehead glistens with salty perspiration and parts of me cling to other parts of me in ways that are entirely uncomfortable, I want to file a complaint. To God. To Mother Nature. To Allah. To Lord and Baby Jesus. To L. Ron Hubbard. Who’s in charge of this shit? Whomever it is, he / she / it ain’t doing the job. This is asinine! Why haven’t our scientists learned to harness the powers of the sun and nature to bend and twist them to our very whims, keeping the temperature a steady and pleasing 60ish to low 70ish or something? And to the pits of hell with humidity! There’s no place for it in our world. It’s cruel and makes my body get moist in unusually punishing ways.

For its conditioned air, work has become a safe haven. Oh, the sweet, sweet cooling air. The morning alarm still makes me feel like a hateful person, but as I peel my overheated body from my soaked sheets, I begin to brighten at the thought of a day spent in front of my work computer, setting up meetings and editing spreadsheets… in a climate controlled environment. Ah work, you gorgeous day job… how I now love you, stealing me away from the sweaty free time where I die a slow death of heat exhaustion. Work -- lovely respite from my air conditioner-less home. Temperatures reaching 120 degrees make a fella want more overtime if he works in an air-conditioned environment.

But that ingeniously cooled air can’t always be counted on -- no sir. Over taxed power grids in this hell state have resulted in some poor bastards being left without power, literally melting away, as air conditioners drain too much electricity and overload the whole imperfect system! That this might somehow affect me and mine was the fear all along… the fear that came true!

This morning I exited the sweltering heat of the evil outside world into an oven of a workplace, the thermostat having seemingly died out of sheer heat exhaustion, like so many old people and cows. Not one to stand for such tragic conditions, my surprisingly spry and computer-like mind began racing like a master thespian on stage when a fellow actor blows a line. Unwilling to be, humiliated like that in front of an audience of co-workers on the stage of life, I devised a plan. A genius plan that involved a fifty-foot long stretch of spread out garbage bags atop our office’s concrete floor, each one taped to the next, the hose from the kitchen sink stretched outside its designated area, and all the cold water that sink could muster. It wasn’t as classy as the old-timey “Slip ‘n Slide” in the days of my much maligned yet missed youth, but it’d do. Cries from my bosses about the mess I was making were pointedly ignored. I heard not the groans and told the weak to cover their eyes as I stripped down to my ill-fitting, boxer shorts with the buttonless front. Damn the shame! I swallowed it down, burying it beneath desire for the cool, refreshing thrill of my heroic inaugural slide. Pleads and attempted judo chops were ignored and deflected as I could not be deterred from what I knew was a brilliant idea. Once the naysayers saw what a delight it was they’d soon follow suit, declaring me a hero. This I knew to be true as I shouted “Cowabunga!” and dove Pete Rose slide style onto the mildly damp, sort of flat line of garbage bags laying atop the hard, hard workplace floor.

I remember little after that save the excruciating pain and loss of feeling in one very vital limb. Still, though I lay in the hospital bed, hopped up on painkillers and needing at least one organ transplant, I’m almost chilly in the unwavering air conditioning that exists throughout this place of healing, not a drop of sweat on my mangled form.