I don't know about you, but if my socks are wet, I can't think about anything else.

Did you ever notice how when you go to sit down at your computer at home to do some work, you notice it really needs some Febreze? Well, maybe you do and maybe you don't, but I'm talking about a) you've got to get to work, no more procrastinating, and b) your fabric chair seat and probably something else really needs to be Febrezed (Is that a word? Febrezed? Maybe it will be now). But Febreze is wet and takes exactly 25 minutes to dry thoroughly, if you follow directions (but not any directions that say "repeat," in which case you probably have a watered-down knock-off and not real Febreze. Maybe you bought Seabreze or Sebreze or Smelleeze or something.) Anyway, because of the nature of your work, you have to sit down before the 25 minutes is up -- I've timed this -- and of course the seat of your pants now gets wet. Well, not exactly wet, but moist, not quite damp -- although you could say damp -- but definitely moist. That is the most uncomfortable situation there is, except for maybe wet socks. I don't know about you, but if my socks are wet, I can't think about anything else. I certainly can't work. But I guess you have to work somehow if you have moist pants. Apparently it's expected by (whom my mother would call) the dirty sons of bitches and rat bastards that sold you the cloth-seated chair in the first place. (Oh, it's more comfortable, they said. Well, sure it's more comfortable until it starts to smell bad and you are expected to do something about it.) And I guess it's just understood that you don't Febreze your clothing while actually wearing them -- although, come on, you know you do -- but there's the picture right there on the bottle of the sofa or the chair, with the curtains, gym bags, the pet area (that's another story), and so on.

So there you are. If you're like me and try to be prepared for work a half an hour before time, and both your work chair and your pants are reminding you that it's laundry day, you just sit there, I guess, for 25 minutes. It's just like that day (and you know that day) in first grade. Your rear end is all cold and wet, and your crotch is pretty wet too, although not as much as that day in school, and you're waiting for that flowery and soapy smell (just like the nuns, if you notice) to overpower that other smell that you can only describe as, well, that "down there" smell. And you're still supposed to work.

That's just fine, I suppose, if you're accustomed to working with damp pants, with your thoughts constantly being distracted and forced "down there." And there must be plenty of people like that, for sure. Just look around at the other columnists in here with me right now. Like that one, the young one two cubicles over and one row to the left from me; you'd think she was born with moist trousers, just concentrating away, happy as you please, on matters "down there." Well, that's the fashion, I suppose, but it seems to me that you can get that kind of stuff in French books and whatnot, and I'm not French. But as that young comedian I like with the arrow in his head (not really) says, "Excyoooooo-oooz me!"

There. You see? It takes a good 15 minutes or so for your sense of humor to return after, shall we say, some "damp blanket" or dirty son-of-a-bitch-rat-bastard has spritzed on your parade. Well, it's just not me to hold a grudge. Otherwise, I'd still be spoiling for a few pokes, dukes akimbo, oh yeah, with those rotten sons of bitches that robbed Andy Griffith of his Oscar when he made

A Face in the Crowd. Well, as I said back then, they can have their Sal Mineos, and they can have him again, or whoever it is now.

And how do you like this? I just tried to take a little break for the restroom because of this medication that keeps the heart from pushing too much water weight around the bypass, and I got up from the chair with a noise that sounded for all the world like a strong man ripping a panel of wet sheetrock in two with his bare hands. Naturally, I thought I had ripped a straight-edged six inches dead between the suspenders and out of these shrink-to-fit 38 x 32 Old Navys, but a little damage control and a yoga position of some kind showed me I was intact. Well, what do they put in this Febreze, anyway? A little Krazy Glue?

Oh hell, maybe that wasn't it at all. Still in my half-assed or I should say ass-kiss yoga position, I got the full brunt (and that's a damned good word for it, the brunt) of that "down there" olfactory evidence of laundry day and a few other things indigestion-oriented. I was a little woozy, I guess, but the Febreze being right there at the edge of the desk and everything, I took ahold of her and reapplied to both seats while composing a note to both manufacturer, Procter & Gamble, and Good Housekeeping.

But, wet socks, like I was saying, you ever notice? Do you ever notice any of this stuff?