Stetson Man

OR

How I wound up smelling like a man, looking like a hobo and sitting next to Bart at a movie.

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As a general rule I don't shower in the summer. I know what you are thinking, gross, right? Wrong. You should be thinking "brilliant!" "genius!" etc. Hear me out...

In the summer in Texas you have two options of what to do every day. 1- Swim and 2- Die of heat exhaustion. Seriously, the lowest high temp in the next ten day forecast is 97 dgs. Add 5 dgs for humidity and let's just say...

I choose to swim.

And since I choose to swim everyday I see absolutely no need to shower. Just about the time I start feeling gross it's time to go swimming again. I've been using this system for two years now and there is a reason for that, it works. No one has ever told me I smell bad or anything ( to my face). Besides the only time I even see other people during the summer is at the pool so if they look repulsed I just jump in and instantaneously look and smell the same as them, if not better!

So today, like any other summer day, we had plans to go swimming. I made a command decision to not shower, but thought I would spruce up with a little deodorant, a thorough face washing and some antibacterial hand sanitizer for good measure.

Good as new.

Except for I couldn't find my own deodorant, so I had to borrow Blaine's. It smelled pretty manly, but it was better than nothing and I wasn't going to see anyone who would notice until I was at the pool. No worries.

Then I remembered how our fridge had no food. Literally, none. For breakfast Blaine scrounged up some orange juice from the back of the freezer. He might have dipped some graham crackers in it, not sure. Since I've been reading "The Glass Castle" it seemed extra important that I go to the store today to get some grub; lest this turn into a habit and Gwen grow up to write her memoirs which include stories about how she had to eat questionable orange juice and grahams for breakfast (yesterday she had Trix in questionable chocolate milk, we're on a roll!)

Anyway, I took it upon myself to invite Ralphie to Costco. She agreed and we were off. And I smelled like a man. But it was okay because we were going to go swimming later.

But then by the end of Costco Bentley was tired. So we came home for a nap, but we were going to go swimming after dinner, no sense in showering now!

But then Ralphie called and said that she was bailing on swimming and was instead going to go see a movie. A movie that she has been begging me to go see with her forever. A movie that simply would not be the same without me there.

I wanted to go support her, but had promised Gwen we would go swimming. Since I live in fear of Gwen's bitter memoirs I decided to stay home and keep my promise to Gwen, and also I hadn't avoided showering all day for nothing! I was going swimming!

But then I thought of Ralphie there in the theater, with only three other friends to watch this movie with. I thought of the countless times she had asked, nay pleaded, for me to go with her. And I decided to sacrifice my relationship with my daughter to go to the show.

No shower, men's deodorant, going out for a girls night out. Luckily I would probably sit by Ralphie who has likely grown used to my "summer aroma". Nope, sat next to Bart.

Lucky, lucky Bart.

P.S. I have some things I really want to blog about, but cannot because I have been forbidden to talk about them. They are the types of things, however, that consume about 98% of my daily thoughts, and not being able to blog about them has rendered me as kind of a useless blogger. Hopefully the ban will be lifted and I will be able to speak of said things soon. Or I just might burst from lack of self-expression regarding aforementioned things. The end.