Shearer, 601 words

Summer was once my favorite season of the year but not anymore.

When I was a teen-ager more than 20 years ago, I used to be happier than a child on Christmas morning when school would let out for the summer. I knew that several weeks of sleeping late, jumping in the swimming pool and just having fun being lazy had arrived--at least until football practice started in early August.

Now that I am over 40 and in the working world--and summer is basically no different from the rest of the year in many respects--I dislike it. The primary reason is that I do not like sweating.

I have still not completely figured out my talents, but one of them must be the ability to perspire profusely. And summertime literally brings out the best inside me.

I do not mind getting hot and sweaty exercising or working in the yard, because I know I can take a shower in an air-conditioned house afterward.

But what I do hate is sweating after I have taken a shower. This can occur countless times, including when I am cooking a hamburger on the grill, attending a baseball game or outdoor concert, walking up the driveway from the mailbox, or basically any other activity that involves being outside for more than ten seconds. I can basically sweat on impulse during the summer.

Occasionally, my wife lets me know my perspiring is creating an unpleasant aroma. Here is the hint she drops me: "You stink!" It does not help that she, like most women, basically does not sweat and cannot identify with my problem.

Sometimes I think I must smell so badly from sweating that someone is going to mistake me for a pig and try to barbecue me.

Other aspects of summer I detest are poison ivy and all the creepy crawlies and bugs that are out.

I can actually handle the flies and spiders that get into the house. And I am not that fearful of snakes, mainly because most of the ones I see have been run over by automobiles. Someone who sees me jump ten feet in the air after I see a curved stick that looks like a snake might disagree with my assessment, but the reptiles really do not bother me.

What does aggravate me, however, is the ticks. Because I like to walk and jog near several wooded areas, I am regularly knocking ticks off my legs or arms. Unfortunately, one will occasionally bite me--which, of course, causes me to break out in a sweat of the cold variety over fears that I will get Lyme Disease or Rocky Mountain Spotted Tick Fever.

I have about decided that I am going to have to be treated like my dog and start wearing a flea and tick collar during the summer and get my wife to rub one of those special canine oils on the back of my neck every few weeks.

One other characteristic of summer I do not like is that drought conditions seem to exist every year now where I live. Summer droughts used to take place only about every four or five years, but now people talk about getting ready for one as if it were an annual event like the Fourth of July.

Needless to say, I am ready for fall and cooler--and hopefully wetter--weather to arrive. And when winter comes and I have a bad cold, I will no doubt long for the hot days of summer--when I can go outside and sweat my ailment away.

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