No Sweat

I wear a lot of black. And while I really like to believe that this is because black makes a fashionable foundation for a range of looks, it’s also due to a more practical reason:

I sweat. A lot.

Now I know that revealing this fact doesn’t portray me in the most glamorous light. In fact, the last time I blogged about sweat, my own husband—typically my biggest fan—dismissed the whole post as “thirty year old girl bathroom humor.”

Chances are, he won’t like this story a bit. The bulk of it actually takes place in the bathroom, and I find it fairly hilarious.

Fudging a bit on the black-top format, I wore a shade of chocolate brown to an event I was at, let’s just say, sometime within the last month. It was hot—faulty air conditioning—and I was feeling damp enough to warrant a check into how the lighter-than-black garment was shoring up. To my horror, the bathroom mirror revealed an unacceptable level of, shall we say, water damage. I looked around the room, frantically searching for something—anything—to enable me to return to society without my arms crossed forebodingly across my chest.

My eyes settled on a basket of assorted feminine products. Ah ha! I unwrapped the two thinnest liners and got to work sticking them to the inside of my shirt. Did I mention that the dripping chocolate shirt was a sleeveless number?

However, with a little adjusting and readjusting, I was soon confident enough to circulate among the general public. Moments later, I was feeling dryer and a subsequent check in the bathroom mirror confirmed that my idea had been right on the money.

And money was precisely what I began thinking. Oh, the possibilities! Why had no one thought of this before? Letters to the leading feminine hygiene companies began composing themselves in my head. Which one would jump first at the opportunity to foray into a whole new world of keep-dry products? I began brainstorming names for my thin, contoured feats of engineering—catchy monikers like The Pit Stop, or The Dryer Sheet.

Eager though I was to share my excitement here in this forum, I gave pause upon remembering an article I recently read about the family responsible for the current Croc jewelry craze. Evidently, the whole, multi-million dollar industry began with a couple little girls doing what little girls do—decking things out with beads and bangles. One rainy afternoon, they cut loose on the family’s wardrobe of rubbery, candy colored footwear, making all manner of adornments with which to plug those unsightly holes. The father came home—and seeing the same mental dollar signs that enlivened my oh-so-dry visions—refused to let a single decorated Croc walk out of the family abode until he had the idea patented.

Ah, the patience! The wisdom! The calculated restraint demonstrated by this successful entrepreneur is, of course, the difference between being the common girl with a good idea or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

That, and research.

Mine lasted the amount of time it took my computer to display the results of my first google search.

Evidently, “sweat shields” aren’t so novel an idea. There are entire companies devoted to keeping folks like me dry and presentable—since 1869.

So, while my wardrobe may soon be venturing out of consistent shades of deep midnight, it doesn’t look like I will be able to transfer the permanently black color scheme to my bank account.