the other day, two of my colleagues were having a conversation about the weather, which ran sort of like so:
A (coming in to the office from outside): god, it’s so hot out.
B: no, actually, it’s very humid.
A: i can assure you, it’s extremely hot outside.
B: but the BBC said that it was going to be humid on their weather report last night.
A: well, they must have been wrong, because it’s extremely hot outside.
B: are you sure? maybe you are confusing heat and humidity.
at about this point in the conversation, i, for some reason or the other, felt like ripping out each of their livers and shoving it back down their throats. actually, there was a very good reason: i didn’t care whether or not it was hot or humid or blistering – i was more concerned about the fact that my testicles were close to rotting in my scrotum from the intense heat. also, because i was in an extremely productive mood, and could not tolerate two idiots standing around talking about the weather in insanely loud voices.
speaking of my testicles in the heat, later on in the day, i was urinating, and my hand somehow happened to touch my scrotum, upon which i discovered, to my surprise, that my scrotum was actually cool. now that can’t be a good sign, i thought to myself. isn’t the point of the scrotum to be the warmest part of the body so that sperm can be produced? that used to be my understanding; after all, i’ve spent many cold winter nights cupping my balls, for the heat they provide, among other reasons.
concerned about this new cooling phenomenon, i picked up the latest newspaper, which screamed out with a HUGE bold headline “hottest spell in history of the nation”. the article had advice from expert doctors to drink a lot of water to stay hydrated, so i promptly drank about 6.4 liters of water.
the next day, while browsing through the newspaper again, i noticed that yet another doctor had said that the heat spell could mean a high incidence of urinary infections. i was concerned by this, considering that i had been urinating about every 15 minutes, while consuming massive quantities of water. so, to find out whether or not i had an urine infection, i googled the phrase.
one of the more colorful sites that came up with the search was a blog of someone who was suffering from an urinary infection, and claimed that a urine infection felt like “a spear being poked up your urethra”.
ouch.
i don’t know about you, but the concept of a spear going up my urethra does not sound tremendously appealing. in fact, i’d go as far as to say that i prefer to have things go down my urethra and thus out of my body, instead of the other way around. i figured i didn’t have an urine infection after all, because it didn’t feel like any sort of object, let alone a spear, was going up the urethra. however, in my anxiety to keep things out of my urethra, i became extra cautious: i didn’t let my urethra come anywhere near any object that might have been in contact with the infectious bacteria, and i gave up peeing on the sides of the street.
apparently, i was the only one. in fact, it seemed that the entire city had come out en masse to pee on the side of the street, women and children included. it got to the point where it became necessary to step over someone peeing every fifth step i took during my evening jogs. apparently, everyone in the city had decided to drink quantities of water equal to me, or else they had all come down with urinary infections. i didn’t wait to find out. what if they all had urine infections and i caught it through the air? this gave me good reason to run fast, i must admit. i haven’t jogged this hard in my life, except when i was being chased by the mob. but that’s another story.
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the above isn’t all true. my colleagues don’t watch the BBC.