We’re having a classic southeastern summer, categorized by high heat, absurd humidity (aka “air soup”), and sporadic, extreme storms. The pattern of blazing sun periodically interrupted by deafening downpours reminds me of the summer of 2016, which I spent primarily outdoors in my new role as a stone mason’s laborer.

After a couple of decades in the social service/mental health world, I resigned from a position working with kids in foster care and asked my dear friend, a stone mason, if I could work with her for a while. She graciously agreed, even though I had no experience whatsoever in stone masonry, or any other construction trade.

The work was hard, but it was rewarding. Never before in my adult life had I seen tangible results of my efforts at the end of a workday, and that felt great, despite the smashed fingers and toes and aching muscles.

One day, however, brought exhaustion with no reward. This was a “mud-mixing” day, when my only job was to dump dry concrete mix into a wheelbarrow, add water from a hose, stir up the concoction with a hoe, roll the wheelbarrow across the worksite, pour it out next to some folks who were building a wall, then roll the wheelbarrow back to the mixing area. I repeated this action for eight hours while the weather did its summery thing: blazing hot sun ➡️ explosive downpour ➡️ blazing hot sun ➡️ explosive downpour. I must’ve gotten soaked and sun-dried about half a dozen times throughout the day, with copious amounts of sweat and concrete dust seeping into the mix all the while.

At 5 p.m., I brushed and stamped off as much dirt and dust as possible, then got in my car, planning to swing by the grocery store on my way home. Stopped at a red light soon after leaving worksite, I was hit by a smell so horrendous, I actually gagged. For a moment, I wondered if I’d left a bag of dog poop in my trunk after a recent hike. I’d done this very thing about a year before and had wondered for weeks about the gross mystery smell in my car. However, as I began to search for the profound stench’s source, a terrible truth revealed itself.

The source was me. I was the bag of shit left in the trunk.

After hours of repeatedly sweating, getting poured on, and baking in the sun, I’d become the foulest blob of putrescence ever to ooze across the earth. And who knows – maybe I’d eaten something particularly revolting the night before, like a decomposing corpse covered in gorgonzola cheese, and had just forgotten about it. Because I sure did smell that way.

Needless to say, I vetoed my plan to stop by the store and drove straight home instead for a 12-hour shower. And every day that we have weather patterns like those we’ve had so often this summer, I think back on the time I could have, if I had so chosen, traumatized a group of unsuspecting grocery store shoppers with a cloying, malodorous smog powerful enough to make them cry. I swear, given the level of stench, they could’ve had me arrested for chemical terrorism.

In an effort to end things on a positive note (rather than with the words “chemical terrorism”), I’ll share a nice thing that stems from our mercurial summer weather: