Perspiration

Since childhood, I’ve maintained a very romantic notion of my body’s ability to sweat. I’m a dainty thing. I was the last to get hair in my armpits. I don’t use locker room showers. They’re gross, and I don’t need them. Growing up, my parents resisted letting me use deodorant for reasons I still don’t understand. But I do understand that in doing so they planted in me the conviction that I don’t emit body odors. So you can imagine my delusion last night when, after a strenuous yoga class, during which enough sweat pooled on my mat that I nearly slipped and died while trying to do a forearm stand, I left the studio, got onto the train and thought, “this reeks,” and then got onto the bus and thought, “foul,” and then got home, closed my bedroom door and said out loud, “why does everything smell so rank?” Then I finally realized that it was me, all along, smelling like cheese.