For the past couple of weeks at work, I have been having a problem. My pants have been getting wet.
No, I haven't been habitually wetting myself. I only get wet from the knees down (including my pant legs and socks), and the wetness is nowhere near my crotch, thank goodness. I work with water all day long. I'm spraying it and walking around in it constantly, so getting somewhat wet should be expected. But what is confusing is that my pants and socks are guarded by tall rubber boots underneath plastic overalls, which should guarantee that no water makes it way inside. But, for whatever reason, it has been.
Being required to wear jeans, I tuck my pant legs inside of my boots. By mid-shift, I can feel the fabric around my knees growing wet. As the day continued, I can feel the wetness working its way downward as it saturates more and more of my pants. And then once my entire pant leg from the knee down is wet, my sock slowly shifts from dry to moist to completely wet. Sometimes, my socks become so wet that by the end of the day I will take off my boot and my feet and toes will be white and pruny and disgusting.
Afflicted with this discomfort on a daily basis, I have tried to figure out why this could be happening. Here are some of the theories I have come up with:
Theory 1 : My boot is leaking
- It seemed plausible, but when I thought about it, the wetness moves from the knee down. If the boot was leaking, my foot would be the first thing to become wet.
Theory 2 : The knees in my overalls had holes and were letting water in
- A quick inspection of the bright yellow overalls proved this wrong.
Theory 3 : When I kneel on the ground to clean something, water gets into the base of my overalls and then creeps up until it reaches my knee and soaks the fabric there
- This was a bit more complex than the first two theories, but it seemed even more plausible since I kneel on the ground to clean things on a regular basis. To see if this was correct, I stopped kneeling on the ground so much. I couldn't avoid it entirely, but I did a pretty good job at staying busy with things that did not require kneeling. Regardless, by the end of the day, my pant legs and socks were sopping wet.
Theory 4 : MEDICAL MARVELS
- OPTION A - My knees are peeing on me during the work day. As this doesn't seem too likely, I laid this theory to rest.
- OPTION B - After telling my co-workers about my wet pant legs, they said it was probably because my legs were sweating. Sweating is a daily occurrence with sanitation employees because we are wearing plastic protective gear while working around scalding hot water. But, I thought to myself, I don't think if I've ever seen my legs sweat. Are legs capable of sweating? As it turns out, they are. This I learned thanks to Google and about five minutes. I found an entire message forum with multiple people complaining of sweating legs, but all of these seemed to happen while they were asleep. Most of them even said that their leg sweating was so dramatic that their sheets were soaked in the morning or that the wet feeling woke them up in the middle of the night. Disgusting. If you want to check out this caravan of freak show comments, and I recommend you do, click here Sweaty Leg Discussion Forum. The progression of the discussion is kind of funny. At one point, someone says that he knows that two causes of excessive sweating are cancer and HIV. Wow! Let's not jump to any dire conclusions.
As of the moment, The Mystery of the Wet Pants remains unsolved. It may be sweat. It may be leaky protective gear. It may be that water is sneaking up my pant legs. It may be a combination of all three or even an unpredictable fourth option. Who know? I suspect this would even stump the Hardy Boys. Probably not that Nancy Drew, though. She's really sharp. But I'd never tell her about my wet pant legs. I'd be too embarrassed to admit to potentially having a sweaty leg problem to such a hottie. All I'm going to say, though, is that if I get trench foot, the company I'm working for is replacing my useless and decaying feet with new bionic versions that are super magnetic so I can walk on steel walls.
Daily Ice-Cream Intake
3 Orange Sherbet Push-Ups, 1/4 Gallon Cookies and Cream Ice-Cream, 1 Vanilla Bar in Chocolate, 1 Ice-Cream Candy Bar
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