The Joy of Sweating

The title may be a bit of a surprise but there is a strange comfort and joy in being able to sweat. Now, lets not get carried away here. This statement in no way means that I desire to do all the yard work for those in my church come summer time, however it does mean that sweating is good. I could bore you with all the scientific details of vasodilatation and heat exchange but that isn’t the purpose of this post. When I was in Antarctica I became acutely aware that I was unable to sweat. This was partly due to the extremely cold environment, which prevented me from rarely attaining the temperature at which point I began to excrete moisture, and that same environment was extremely dry which if I was able to sweat it nearly always evaporated before I was fully cognizant of this exchange of energy. Oh, I also did everything I could not to sweat as this only influenced the dreaded hypothermia exponentially.

At some point in my first season at McMurdo Station I realized that I couldn’t sweat. I worked out with minimal success. Worked hard while on the ice with moderate success, but not comfortable. I ran which did attain the desired sweat but also rapidly froze to the inside of my shirt and made the rest of the journey home not only uncomfortably chaffing but also dangerously hypothermic. I related my plight to one of my colleagues who had spent a few seasons on the ice and she informed me of a little cave located under some stairs. This cave would soon become my little haven from the frozen temperatures of this beautiful island.

The door to the cave was only 3-4 feet tall and the cave was normally called “Odie’s office” for a gentleman who was nicknamed Odie. This man was of a uniquely short stature and vaguely resembled the lovable cartoon character (if you had somehow managed to get a poppy seed derivative into your system). Once the door was opened there was the experience of stepping into an oven. The heat from this small little space hit you like the force of an overly aggressive two year old meeting an abandoned popsicle cart. It made you double over and drop to your knees like a bad frat party or some tainted Taco Bell. (The doubling over and knee dropping in this case is a good thing as the one performing the action is getting in an appropriate position for thanking God. The examples express more of a picture of someone preparing to meet Him).

This labyrinth that contained this powerful elixir was actually quite small. It was after all the space under some stairs, and really not that many stairs. To the left of the entryway were two stairs built so as to hold a seated person while they sweat profusely. I guess two people could in fact sit there but then you would be touching either the person directly or invading their personal space which when little clothing is worn is quite uncomfortable for any length of time. To the right of the entryway was the sun-mimicking heat source. Since McMurdo is a volcanic island there were some very appropriately placed lava rocks stacked upon the heat source.

The room itself was not tall enough for even me to stand up in but that did not matter, neither did it matter that the switch for the light was placed outside the “office”. The light switch was oddly placed in the middle of the wall of a rather large room used as an educational room. Those who hadn’t been there long generally did not know what that particular light switch operated and this is compounded when they never see the effect it produces. This made it interesting to be in the heat box when the new guy is trying to see what “this switch does”.

Interestingly enough, “Odie’s office” is located in a meeting room, which was infrequently used frequently. I never really knew when a meeting would be called in this room and not too many people wondered why there was a stack of clothes in the back of the room. I sat through several meetings that I was never invited to, nor known to be there. I once lost 20 lbs of water weight just from being in a meeting that “went long”.

To not be able to sweat is really a sad experience to have, but to not experience the odorific product of sweat was a pleasure. Now, some may say, “Hey, it’s wintertime and I don’t sweat I don’t understand what the big deal is.”. First, I would say, “Don’t end a sentence with a preposition.” Second, I would completely agree with that person, the time of the season is winter and they don’t understand. It’s like Phoenix Arizona in June as far as dryness is concerned and like Antarctica as far as temperature is concerned. It is vastly different than what most people have experienced and therefore can be hard to understand. The skin is rather dry and enclosed in this environment, but to get into Odie’s office, sit on wooden stairs that have had countless butts attached to it, and have every pore on your skin open up and expel its contents onto that wood makes you feel uniquely attached to hundreds of other butts who planted themselves in that little room to experience the true joy of sweating. In all truth I actually wore shorts and immediately washed off the unique connection to hundreds of other butts. There were just some things of McMurdo that I didn’t need to bring home.

That little place was just fantastic, it made myself, and many others, a new person—skin exercised and ready to meet the dry, bitter elements of an unforgiving climate. But, sadly, as when the bean counters and paper pushers realize that there is something that the underlings have that makes them happy they must either control it or take it away. And the later is what I have heard has happened to Odie’s office. They didn’t remove the stairs that created the little room but they did remove the portable sun. More than likely it has not left the island, but sits comfortably in building 125 or 137 (probably 137 it does have the nicer view) so the VIP’s can have their own little sauna when they stay there for a week.