A few weeks ago, at some point before the autumn weather preview that we had in late August, I was standing in the First-Aid aisle of a CVS pharmacy on the Upper East Side. While I searched for non-slip, extra-sticky, waterproof, shoe leather resistant bandages to protect my heels from another round of blisters, a family of three entered the store.
They struck me as the archetypal UES clan. All three were engaged in a conversation, but one so fragmented that they might not have been talking to one other. They spoke in turns, without ever interrupting each other, and they moved about the store as a unit, but when the mother mentioned something that she needed to grab, the father would reply with a completely unrelated sentence, even as he held out the shopping basket to let his wife deposit an item in with the rest of their purchases.
The son, a nine- or ten-year-old boy, trailed closely behind his parents but dodged out of the way when either one of them changed paths. He had developed a talent for keeping up with mom and dad and keeping out from under foot at the same time. He carried a hand-held video game console, but it was powered-off and dangling from his bony arm by a woven wrist strap. His defeated shoulders sagged so low that the game nearly dragged on the floor. As his parents blurted out their individual shopping lists, their trains of thought darting every which way, the boy’s high-pitched oration followed one coherent thread.
“Why is it that I sweat at camp but never at home?”
“What, honey? Not that brand.”
“At camp I was sweating all the time and here I don’t.”
“Do you have to get the gel kind? I don’t like the gel kind. Buddy, what happens at camp?”
“I’m just as hot here. But I don’t sweat at all.”
“Honey, you just don’t run around as much when you’re in the city. Pick out your own then. I still need moisturizer.”
“I know, but everyone else here sweats and I don’t. I’m hot now. I should be sweating and you can’t even see it on my shirt.”
“Buy one get one for fifty percent . . . Buddy, you should be happy that you don’t sweat that much. Equal or lesser value . . . What happened to your mother?”
Of course, I can only speculate, but I got the clear impression that the kid, who appeared to be a little on the prissy side, had recently returned to the city from summer camp, where he had discovered that sweating lowered his body temperature and made him feel cooler. I could just picture a bunch of tweenaged boys jabbing at one another, measuring each other’s machismo by the surface area of sweat prints on their pint sized LaCoste polos and Crew Cuts t-shirts.
I guess kids really will pick on each other over anything. Poor little guy.
Meanwhile, just standing in CVS had cast a glistening sheen over my skin. Yes, I’m just a sweaty person. I grabbed a box of Band-Aids and headed for the deodorant section, hoping to discover a new anti-perspirant formula. I’m seriously ready to try anything to dry up the tributaries that run from my pores. The extract of a recently discovered rain forest flora. Moon rock flakes. Hops. Seriously, anything. Listen to your dad, kid. You should be happy.
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