Would You Like A Fresh Towel?

I sweat.
A lot.
I suffer from what is now known as hyperhidrosis.

All my life I’ve been plagued with uncontrollably sweaty hands. It’s made life a little tough. No one wants to shake hands with you, or really be touched by you. Anytime my hands have brushed someone or I’ve shaken hands or slapped someone “five”, I’ve gotten some variation of the following comment: “Ew! What have you been doing, jerking off/taking a piss/wiping your ass/washing a midget?” It gets tiresome. Over the years I’ve tried to avoid physical contact as best I can.

This has obviously hindered my dating life. I’ve read that touch is an important part in relationships, and that often people flirt with each other by touching.

I would have no idea.

I’m the guy in the corner of the room with his hands tightly folded across his chest, hoping to God that no one wants to shake his hand or be social.

A few years ago I decided to take action. I wanted to have dry hands. I had been hanging out with a girl named Amanda, and she liked to hold hands, which as I’ve stated is a big problem. She was at first put off by my swampy hands, but tried the best she could to tough it out. I wanted to remedy this nuisance and so I started researching what could be done.

I discovered that it is indeed a documented medical condition affecting a small portion of the population. (About 1%, which explains why not much has been done to cure it.)

As I read up about hyperhidrosis, I found that there were several surgeries and medications I could look into. Unfortunately, I had neither the money, nor the health insurance to afford either alternative.

But as I browsed further I came across a contraption that would electronically ZAP the problem away. And it was cheap. Only $139.95.

Needless to say, I plunked down the cash and ordered it online.

A week later, my salvation arrived. I quickly tore open the box, like a kid on Christmas morning. There were two blue plastic pieces with batteries and two sponges. I read the instructions and learned that it would take at least 20 sessions before I saw any results and that each “session” lasted an hour.

Did I have that kind of time? I thought to myself. If it means being able to hold a girl’s hand when I walk down the street with her, I had all the time in the world!

A “session” consisted of filling each blue plastic piece with a little bit of water, then placing your hand half-in and half-out of the water, so that your palm rested on one of the sponges which was situated above a metal plate which was connected to the battery. This is where the electrical shocks were distributed to the rest of your hand.

I wasted no time and immediately began the procedure.

I filled the two blue plastic pieces with the required amounts of water, set my hands in them and, like a crippled child waiting to be touched by a divine healer at a pentacostal church, braced for my redemption.

The shock that was delivered to my hands was much like the shock one gets when licking a nine-volt battery and it didn’t bother me at first. But imagine continually licking that battery for an hour and you’ll understand how much it started to bug me.

Five minutes or so into my therapy, the phone rang.

And I with both hands submerged in water being electrocuted.

I let it ring. I’ve got an answering machine, I reasoned, and I can’t be disturbed! When the machine picked up, it was Amanda. She called to ask if I would like to hang out on the Friday coming up and go to a concert with her. Oh boy, would I! And with dry hands if this all works out. I thought about calling in sick to work for the next several days and just get my 20 sessions done with immediately. I would just plop myself in front of the TV, take half hour breaks to feed myself or change the channel, and be done with this sweaty hand problem once and for all!

About 45 minutes into the treatment my hands started to become sore, and I realized I would have to take more time out between sessions in order to rejuvenate the fried nerve cells in my hands. While it might be unpleasant to hold hands with a damp sponge of a mitt, it’s probably even less charming to grip a swollen, inoperative paw.

I did two sessions that night before going to bed, confident that my days of flood-ravaged palms would soon be behind me.

The next day, after work I came home and stuck my hands back in the charged water. And for another hour I sat, unable to do anything. I started to get bored. If only I had remembered to stop by Blockbuster on the way home I could watch a movie. Instead I sat, staring at the screen saver on my computer. Every so often I would lean forward and bump the mouse with my nose so I could at least check the time when the desktop returned to life.

Suddenly the doorbell rang. And I remembered that I was supposed to have dinner with my cute next-door neighbor Michelle.

Michelle was a beautiful, petite, blond girl who was studying psychology and worked with autistic patients at a health clinic. She had originally moved in next door with her boyfriend, but he’d left a few months prior and she and I had been hanging out more and more. She had great taste in music and we traded CDs quite often. One night she was over, browsing through my collection and discovered a CD entitled “Pull My Finger”, which was a collection of genuine fart sounds. I was ready to explain that I had bought the CD to use for sound effects for a short film I had been working, but all she said was, “Put it on.” I did and we both sat there listening to various farting noises and she collapsed in my lap in fits of laughter. She then asked me to copy it for her. I was head over heels in love with her at that point.

My brother had come to visit one week and the three of us spent a night getting drunk in her apartment. Afterwards, my brother pointed out that he thought I definitely had a chance but that I should act on it within the next week or I would find myself stranded in Friendsville.

Needless to say, I should listen to my brother more.

One night I heard Michelle get home from a night of drinking. There was a lot of banging around and I figured she was real drunk. Being a man of no common sense, I figured it was a perfect time to ask her if she wanted to go to the Degas exhibit at the museum the next day. (We had talked about this several times, so I wasn’t just springing it on her)

She answered the door, rip-roaring drunk and laughed.

“Oh, hey Dave,” she said, genuinely happy to see me.

Unfortunately, standing not a few feet behind her was a 6’2” guy who looked like he just got off The Stokes’ tour bus. And he looked at me with a leering smile that said, “Sorry pal, I’m hittin’ this tonight.” Michelle introduced us and neither one of us could give a shit if we ever saw one another again, knowing full well that we never would. I apologized for interrupting, then retreated to my apartment and tried to go to sleep. At one point, yes, I had to put on my headphones to drown out the thumping of the sex happening next door.

Now that I was a resident of Friendsville, we seemed to hang out more often, and so we had made plans to go have dinner at a new Sushi place that had opened downtown.

And now she was ringing my doorbell at the designated time.

While I had my hands soaking in cheap blue plastic bins, completely unprepared to go out.

Here was the dilemma: Do I stop my procedure and go have dinner with my good friend Michelle (and she was a good friend, polite and generous and loving, and I still liked her despite the fact that I would never be intimate with her)? Or do I feign an illness and continue the electro-shock so that I may hold hands with Amanda (who wasn’t really any more of an option besides the fact that she would actually walk down the street hand in hand with me and occasionally throw me a bone and kiss me)?

In hind sight, I guess either way I was a loser. But that’s not the point.

The point is that I discontinued my treatment, hurriedly got dressed for the evening and went out to eat with Michelle.

At the sushi bar I realized how painful it was to hold the chopsticks. I didn’t want this thing to completely deaden my nerve endings just so I wouldn’t sweat. Hell, I had dealt with sweaty hands for the last 28 years, and I was perfectly comfortable folding my arms in defiance when someone reached out to shake my hand. Perhaps I could play it off as a phobia and be considered a “quirky genius”. I’m not sure where the genius part comes in, but never you mind! I had made a decision.

That evening when I returned home from my dinner with Michelle, I retired the blue plastic contraptions to a rarely-ventured-into corner of my closet.

Amanda and I never really hit it off and she eventually stopped wanting to hold my hand.

When I moved from that apartment I had box of things I was going to take to the Salvation Army. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a car, so the box sat in a back room of my apartment until moving day.

Michelle stopped by to help me clean up. She discovered the box and offered to take them to the Salvation Army for me after I’d left. I thanked her and we carried the box to her apartment.

She looked inside and pulled out the two blue plastic boxes.

“What are these?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “A misguided attempt to stop my hands from sweating.”

“Really?” She smiled as we set down the box.

“I’ve always liked your sweaty hands,” she said. “It’s one of the things that makes you so unique.”