Never Let ‘Em See you Sweat

If you ever hear me call Frank, “Sweat” or hear him say, “Oh, that was sweat,” there’s a good reason: Frank can’t spell.

He replied to an email from me in 1999 and I guess I had said something nice to him so he wrote, “That was sweat.” Of course, he meant “sweet.” I, being the spelling bee champ of 1988, mocked him.

I told him that I would start calling him “Sweaty” because a). it sort of sounds like “sweetie” with an Alabama accent and b). he’s a pretty sweaty guy.

I didn’t know then that “sweat” would become the most common word in our relationship vernacular:

Seven-and-a-half years later I still call him “Sweat” or “Mr. Sweat” or “Sweatonio” or “Sweaters.”

We replace words in songs with it like “Did you ever know that you’re my sweaty? You’re everything I would like to be…” or “Welcome to the Sweaty, we got fun and games…” or “I’m bringing Sweaty back…them other boys don’t know how to act.”

Sometimes after church we’ll have a song stuck in our head and we’ll accidentally sing something like, “Seek ye first the kingdom of Sweat…” and then one of us will say, “Wait! You can’t replace God with Sweat! That’s blasphemy!”

Whenever someone does something nice, cool or thoughtful we say, “Oh, that was sweat.”

He now calls ME “Sweat” or “Mrs. Sweat” or “Sweatonia” or “Sweater.”

We try to keep all the “sweat-talk” to a minimum when we’re around other people but sometimes it just slips out. I rarely call him by his name and I’m not even sure he KNOWS my name!

So I’m just warning you of this in case you’re hanging out with us and one of us launches into, “Oh, we’re halfway there…oh-oh, living on a sweat!”

Hmmm…I just replaced prayer. That WAS NOT very sweat of me.