My OCD

Sports Guy had a section in his mailbag the other day where he talked about how April is the best month in the sporting calendar. The NHL/NBA seasons end and playoffs begin. MLB opening Day. The Final Four. Easter – tell me the egg hunt with your cousins isn’t a sport when you’re a pre-teen. The NFL draft. And WrestleMania.
That’s a hell of a list there. I’d love to agree with him. But April is not my favorite month. I got beef like a butcher with the month of April – sorry I was channeling my inner commercial rapper there again…I hate April for 5 little words. April. Showers. Bring. May. Flowers.
I’m cool with flowers. I like the smell of them. I like the aesthetic properties of them on the table. I like giving them to that lil cutie and watching her appreciate them for those same reasons. I dig May. Any month with a holiday that encourages me to drink tequila is A-Okay in my book. Plus, I’ve always been a fan of Memorial Day. Beginning of summer. It reminds me that Kennywood picnic day is right around the corner. (Note: Dylan hasn’t been to Kennywood in years at this point, but the nostalgia is grand.) Bring is cool with me. It rhymes with King. I am the King of Kings. I like April for aforementioned superficial reasons.
I’m annoyed by the humidity up here in the summer. I enjoy a San Diegan 82-degree day with no humidity and a nice breeze. I LOVE snow – showers, flurries, storms - Oh the weather outside is frightful…I’m down with those days in September when it’s unseasonably mild. I anxiously await those November days when it’s unseasonably sunny/warm.
I hate the rain. I don’t like being rained on. I was walking in the rain the other night, it was March 31st getting drenched. I started thinking how on March 1st, I was walking in that awesome and unexpected blizzard. I was taking the same route both nights. I loved the snow. I hated the rain. I started thinking about the rain and how much I despise it. Then I thought about the only time I can remember being alright with being rained on. It was in ’07. I was running a concrete pour at the Plaza Hotel. We were pumping it up two stories into our space. Everyone else was walking around looking like the Gorton’s fisherman. I was wearing a hardhat to keep my face (realatively) dry.
It was raining hard for hours on end while I stood with the truck making sure everything went well. I had no problems when I went inside that afternoon all soaked and monitored the other work in the space. I did however get really pissed off when I got called into a meeting at the home office at 2PM. I walked in and they were bumping the AC a lil bit and I was fucking miserable. That’s honestly the only time I can remember not caring I had been rained on – upto the point where I had to go into the office. But I made up for that by shaking like a wet dog every room I went into.
And I had a startling epiphany right then and there, in the rain. I hate being wet. Correction, there are only two situations I find it acceptable to be wet. Carnally and in the shower. Aside from that I’d rather be dry. I think it’s a weird phobia I possess. I don’t like being rained on. I don’t like swimming pools. I don’t like the beach. (Though I’ll heartily listen to arguments that I don’t like those lost two because I’m ‘out of shape’. And it’s entirely possible that I’ll agree. Depends on the day we have this conversation.)
But that’s it right there. I wear my pants a size (or two) too big and the legs drag. They get all soaked and with the oversaturation on the ground, the rain water ends up running halfway up my calf. I wear Uptown’s most of the time and they’re not exactly what you’d call water repellent. The toe box is a giant piece of perforated leather.
I hate having mushy socks. It makes my toes all wrinkly and cold. And once my feet get cold, I’ll get cold and be miserable until I can take a shower. (I know I’m a little bitch, you don’t have to tell me. But feel free to click the comment box at the bottom of this page and expound.) And the shoes themselves don’t dry out in the toe for 3 days upto a week. You’ll get rained on Tuesday afternoon, then throw them on to go to dinner on Friday and it’s still moist. WTF?
Of course this feeds into another neuroses of mine that we were discussing earlier tonight. I have a thing about being barefoot. I can’t do it. IDK if I spent too much time in nasty ass locker rooms when I was an impressionable age. But I can’t go barefoot. I have to wear shoes or slippers everywhere I go. It doesn’t matter if we’re just chilling at your parent’s neatly kempt house. I need to have something covering my feet, protecting them from any number of infections which live on the floor. I’ll feel naked and totally uncomfortable if I’m even in my socks.
I think the only thing that feels good on my feet is my parents’ backyard. I know that makes NO sense because it has more germs than the living room. But I know where the roots are in that yard. I know where the grass is thick and luscious. I also know where Barrett Fucking ------ tore up the yard wearing cleats playing football when we were kids. Though, those areas have grown in nicely over the last 12 years. You’d never know it was bald for over a decade. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go alphabetize my mouth care products…