Averted

The nozzle was turned as far to the right as it would go. I leaned to the side of the shower, placing my face on the cool tile wall while trying no to slide to the floor. The cold water kept beating on me.

Minutes ticked by as the icy water drenched my head and body and finally my breath, which had been so labored it physically hurt, came easier. The burning in my cheeks and forehead began to cool. I wasn’t sure, but I believed the throbbing inside my skull was subsiding.

Misadventures usually begin with the best of intentions. As I soaked in the relief of that cold shower, my brain was too soft to figure out where it all went wrong.

The heat of late summer in Tennessee makes the air feel like hot tub water, and it had been sauna-like in Nashville right into the first week of September. This day was the coolest one all week, even though it was 90 degrees at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Not a single cloud in the sky blocked the sun’s relentless shine.

We were a few days away from a short road trip to Indiana for Labor Day weekend. Phil had been working his ass off for weeks with a big project. I could hear him talking in his home office almost all day every day in virtual meetings. He’d of course be tired at the end of the workday.

I, on the other hand, was lounging in the living room, taking a break from my housewifery to listen to some podcast on my Beats. I gazed out the window to see the long blades of grass.

That lawn needs to be mowed and I can get that done.

Clad in my favorite black sweatpants (they have pockets!) and a dark gray cotton shirt, I wandered out with my Beats enclosing my ears and performed the yard prep: I scooped up all the dog poop and picked up all the big sticks in the backyard.

I walked back into the house and filled a Yeti tumbler with ice water and placed it on our patio table so I could refresh myself during my work. Then I made my merry way to the garage, feeling good about myself for getting shit done around here and blowing the gender-normative household chore chart to smithereens.

After firing up our eco-friendly electric mower and navigating it all over our slightly sloped front yard, I was feeling hot, of course. Sweat was running down every curve of my body. My morning moisturizer has SPF 30, but my face still like it was getting crispy. Hurry up and get this task done, I thought.

Under fierce rays of sun beating down on our south-facing backyard, I worked my way around our small rectangle of grass, which is flat by Tennessee standards. Once the job was complete, I maneuvered the mower back to the front of the house and into the garage. That’s when I noticed it was hard to catch my breath.

I am so out of shape.  Finding myself breathless after less than an hour of yardwork embarrassed me. I started to head to the door in the garage that leads to our air-conditioned home when I remembered I needed to close the backyard gate.

Stepping back out into the sunshine from the cover of the garage, I felt blinded. I had started to feel a headache coming on about halfway through mowing the backyard, but now it had become an intense throbbing in my skull.

My legs felt like iron weights. Muscle memory failed and I had to make a concentrated effort to take each step. When I finally made it to the gate, only about 30 feet from the garage, I leaned on it. My breathing was so hard and fast. I again chastised myself for being so feeble.

Once I finally stumbled back inside the house, I tossed off my now sweat-drenched headphones and collapsed into my favorite living room chair, which is conveniently near a vent. I waited for our HVAC system to work its magic. Air was blowing, I could hear it. The promised cool air, however, felt like it was stopping just short of my face.

I could not catch my breath and my head was pounding.

I wobbled my way to the kitchen for a towel, but when I got there, I didn’t seem to have any sweat to wipe off. Heat felt like it was radiating out of my neck and shoulders and seeping out of the pores on my face. My hands were shaky as they touched my parched skin and lips. I got the towel damp and laid it on my neck.

I was almost choking for air.

I suddenly remembered the Yeti full of cold water on the patio, which is at the back of our house and only about thirty feet from where I was standing in the kitchen. My brain was malfunctioning at this point because I WAS IN THE KITCHEN WHERE THERE ARE GLASSES AND WATER AND ICE. But all I could think was to get to that blue steel tumbler.

Steadying myself on walls and furniture, I made the move through the dining room and out the patio door.

It was difficult to swallow water. With a headache now at epic proportions, I willed myself back into the house and into our bedroom, just around a corner from the patio and across from the kitchen.

I stripped off all my outer clothes and sat down in a recliner, still trying to sip water. If my body were like that of a camel, it would be pulling much needed hydration from my fatty deposits. Unfortunately, my lumps of stored calories consist mostly of snack cakes and tequila. Barely a drop of water could be gleaned to reduce my inner heat.

My simmering brain was now making a perilous descent from worry to panic. Is this heat stroke? What do you do for that? Do you get in a cold bath? Or does cold water put your body in shock? We don’t have a bathtub so I can’t take a bath. Does a shower work?  Should I eat ice, or will that cause a brain explosion or a heart attack?

In addition to my headache, my brain was now screaming at me.

WHO THE HELL ACCIDENTALLY KILLS THEMSELVES DOING YARDWORK? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? THIS IS HOW IT ENDS? YOU WILL RUIN THE WHOLE HOLIDAY WEEKEND! COULD 2020 BE ANY SHITTIER?

I willed myself to the bathroom, out of the rest of my clothes, and stepped under cold tap water.

I have no idea how long I stood there, but it seemed like years. When I finally shut off the water, stepped out and wrapped myself in a towel, I was no longer gasping for air.

And now I can reflect on the lesson learned that day.

DO NOT wear dark heavy clothes and big headphones to mow a yard in 90-degree heat during the sunniest part of the afternoon in the dog days of summer in the South.

Death by lawn mowing averted.