achilles' heal (literally!)

I am a large man.

Big -- though I refer to myself often as "the big fat brute!" (if you've read Asterix and Obelix, you'll get the joke), I am in very real terms 'solid'. I can dead life close to 230 pounds and at one time could bench 50 pounds more than I weigh.

I grew up being rough and tumble. Never broken a major bone (not for lack of trying, though I've broken my nose 7 times, two knuckles on my right hand and more toes than I care to count), and never bothered to go to the hospital when bleeding profusely.

But I am cursed with contact allergies, especially to that lovely 'parfum' ingredient in most deodorant and anti-perspirants.

So, when my longtime favourite came out with 'new and improved' I was leery; and for good reason. Two days, and my underarms looked like -- well, like I was seriously reacting to whatever was 'new and improved'.

So I decided to try 'Axe'. Now, I'm not a big fan -- I'd used it when I was younger, but had quickly grown out of smelling like...well, like someone who was trying way to hard to be cool.

But I tried it again.

No sooner had I let loose a couple of seconds of aerosol in each armpit than I was accosted by a unique burning sensation, usually indicative of a severe reaction.

No sooner had that happened than my wife was treated to the lovely sight of me running around the living room flapping my arms like I was going the chicken dance to a great polka band, hooting like a monkey.

(the neighbours, on the other hand, have come to regard this as normal).

A soothing shower, some calamine, and some benadryl later, and I can at last put my arms down.

Aside from the two J-shaped red streaks in my 'pits where the seering stench of pain wreaked its ungodly havoc.

Lesson learned: it's manly to stink.

Slightly less so to run around the house dancing like a demented baboon.

So note to those of you in church on Sunday: stand upwind until my achilles' heel becomes my achilles' healed.