Sein souhaite

In which our Hero is awfully proud of having remembered enough obscure french to be able to write this entry which may well incidentally get him scolded by his sweetheart

When I was 14 or thereabouts, my parents found a neighborhood girl to be a french tutor for me. We shall call her Sandra, because that’s how I remember her name and because it’s an okay enough name for a french tutor. Couldn’t tell you for sure what she looked like, at this point, but the memory is of a caramel-skinned slender girl with short hair.

Of course, I had a crush on her. She was cool: She was in University, no more of this silly-assed grade-school nonsense for her. She was pretty enough, not enough to tie my tongue, but enough that I was aware that she was. And, as much as I laugh at how simple a standard it was at a time, I have to point out again, that I was a 14-year-old boy, in a class full of 14-year-old girls, and this was a young woman, self-possessed and possessed of chest.

She was a clever teacher, too. She snuck practice past my indifference by introducing me to Asterix and Obelix comics. In french, of course, which necessitated me paying attention to my french lessons to get through them. (And she gave me some few hints about verb conjugation that were university level knowledge while I was dealing with high school level courses, so that was just a gift).

At some point, with relevance to something or other she was having me read, and with quiet and hopefully not-obvious glee and embarrassment on my part, she taught me the french word for breast: “sein.” Me, I was a shy enough kid that it was startling for this to come up in a conversation WITH A GURL!!! Her, well, honestly, I’m sure she had some idea of the effect of throwing that my way but she was entirely professional so if she was amused, I never knew for certain.

But that’s why, thanks to Sandra, and the embarrassment that fixes that particular educational moment in my mind, I can title this entry and make it look all classy. Because otherwise, the title would have to have been “Boobsweat” despite the fact that Nocturne would make a face at the word choice. And I love her dearly, but this is one of those times where it really is the right word to use.

This year, they seem to really be trying to save money in the building. The hot water in the bathrooms is getting to be so tepid that I’m close to complaining. And despite the heat of summer, the air-conditioning runs low and uneven enough to make the open spaces mildly uncomfortable, and the meeting rooms into saunas.

Which sucks for me, because I run hot anyway. And after lunch, I’m frequently a radiant space heater. Even if I’m not in a meeting, by mid-afternoon, I can feel that slight stickiness of skin that comes as you just verge on sweat, and it makes for an unpleasant afternoon.

Well, yesterday, I was in a tiny little meeting room with four people, with me directly across from one of the local big kahunas. And the room got hotter and hotter, and part way through the meeting, I started to notice that my phone, in my shirt pocket, was getting really hot, even compared to the room.

So I pulled it out, finding it hot to the touch, and glanced down… to discover that as *it* had been heating up because of whatever application I’d been using at lunch, I was being it’s heat sink. Particularly at the point of contact of breast pocket to chest. Which is why there was a nearly black sweat mark around the bottom of my otherwise very red shirt.

Sweat happens, in general. But I was mortified anyway, and particularly when it’s pretty much right at the eyeline of someone important. Fortunately he already knows me, so he’s more likely to laugh at me than to just write me off as “weird guy” (like [LizzieLu]’s daughter, ha!)

Also, there are very few dignified ways to dry a breast pocket under a bathroom hand-dryer. But the closest approximation I’ve come up with is using my notebook to direct the airflow.

Not that this arrangement left me any less embarrassed when someone else walked into the bathroom, but what can you do?

What? The title? Well, the first word is “Breast” And the last word is “wishes” (in a preference sense), and pronounced almost like sweat. Get it?

Breast wishes, Gentle Reader.