My Time As A Lab Rat, Part V

Without a doubt, the sweating was better than the shower. It was not nearly enough though -- only an hour of soccer to purge the disgusting man-grease that has been building up in my skin. Before my shower (which was really good), I took a peek at my back and already there was only the faintest hint of pink marker remaining. Ahhhhhhhh.

The doctor revealed that I am, in fact, allergic to nothing in the shoe biohazard kit with the exception of maybe one chrome-based compound. I say maybe because apparently my skin only looked like it was thinking about turning red for this one. So, let the straw-grasping begin. This particular chrome compound is used for tanning leather and so I was instructed to avoid wearing leather shoes for the next month. Swwwweeeeeeeetah. I did not actually have any non-leather shoes and so off to REI I went to pick up a pair of new pair of all-synthetic kicks.

I am sticking to my previous analysis in that it is not the being neither clean nor sweaty, it is the not having a choice about it. Look at teenagers: they often do not clean themselves or engage in physical activity for weeks at a time without suffering any change in their mental state. Take away their car/phone/allowance/ps2 though and they are liable to embark on a murderous rampage. As a more evolved creature, I would say that I was at least three days from my absolute breaking point -- the voices were not even starting to be compelling.

So, the experiment goes on. I already told the doctor that there was no way in hell that I was going to avoid wearing leather entirely over the next month since my cleats are leather and I am NOT going to stop playing disc or soccer. The rest of the time, I do not really care; I think I'll be wearing flip-flops to work for the next month.

Anxiety: low; itchiness: tempered; stinkiness: eliminated.