Horsforth and my balls are drenched

Yesterday, I got completely soaked on the way home from work. When I set off in the morning on my trusty scooter, it was a beautiful sunny day.

When I say “beautiful sunny day” you will of course interpret this relatively.  

By the time I arrived at work, it had started to rain and it pretty much didn’t stop from then on. In fact, I don’t think it has stopped yet.

That morning, I did not put my waterproofs on. For some reason, I have developed a bizarre aversion to putting my heavily-armoured and waterproof overtrousers on. It has just become another one of those things I avoid doing even though I almost always feel better after having done so – like shaving or touching ham.

So I just had on normal work trousers and a leather jacket – of a style one might refer to as a “blouson”. Plus helmet and gloves, OBVS.

A brief aside to follow up on and qualify the rave review I gave the Nolan N103 crash helmet back in February 2011.  

1. If you put the helmet on and your hair or face are already a bit wet, the whole “won’t steam up” pinlock magic doesn’t work.
2. The pinlock insert itself has, over the course of a year, wriggled itself a bit loose from the visor being put up and down – and where it has ground against the windscreen, both have scratched at the top and bottom, leaving me with two regions I can’t now see properly out of.

I don’t suppose you get too many reviews of wear and tear on crash helmets, but that, dear friends, you can have for free.

Anyway, back to yesterday morning when I was deciding what to wear. The sun was shining (see disclaimer above) and it is June. How bad could getting a bit wet be?

As the day wore on and the rain came down more and more heavily, but instead of becoming gloomy at the prospect of a soaking my inner Stoic took charge.

“You’re going to get very wet going home, but there’s no way you can avoid getting wet;  you can only get so wet; and as soon as you get home, you can take the wet stuff off. C’mon it’ll be fun,” Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius was whispering into my ear.

Knowing that it was an unavoidable certainty rather than something I had to worry might happen, off I went home rather more cheerful than pathetic fallacy might have suggested.  

By the time I got to my bike, I was pretty soggy. By the time I had cleared Westgate, my trousers were wet through.

Well, I thought, if this is what I’ve been fretting about – if this is as bad as it gets – getting wet really is something only IDIOTS are afraid of.

O reader, knew I then what I now know of the extent and hideous process by which one can become even wetter I would have balked at my overconfidence.

I trundled merrily along, zipping in and out of traffic and laughing maniacally (in my head) at the poor benighted car-drivers who would have to sit in their queues for an hour or more – just because they were scared of a little bit of rain!

Soon, though, a cold discomfort spread to my inner thighs...

At this point, I suppose I should warn you that if the thought of my inner thighs is upsetting to you, it would be advisable to stop reading now – as further, more graphic reference will continue to be made to those regions which, if I were an aircraft, would be generically titled “undercarriage”.

That is rather unpleasant, I thought. It’s not unlike that feeling you get after you’ve been swimming and then sat around in your trunks for a while – you think you’re dry, you stand up, and you realise that certain areas are in fact still very wet. Unpleasant, but tolerable.

But shortly afterwards, as I drove through Horsforth (I had decided to go home a slightly different way! I know! Mi vida loca!) I felt what can only be described as a clenching sensation – reminiscent of a prodded snail retreating into its shell.

I don’t know if anyone here has ever dipped their testicles into cold water, but it is not something I can recommend. Gradually, the rain seeped through my undergarments and dug its icy talons into my beleaguered nutbag.

At the same time, let me add, I was grappling with the fact that I had put my helmet on AFTER getting wet – and so my visor was steaming up from the inside, as well as covered with droplets of rain on the outside. Seeing the road and traffic ahead was already pretty difficult, without the added distraction of intense scrotal chilling.

But, man’s capacity for enduring suffering is great. And soon I got used to it. I won’t say that I liked it – but, hey, adversity breeds strength of character, doesn’t it?

Plus, water goes down. Once it’s there, it’s got nowhere else to go.

OR HAS IT?

I shall spare you too detailed a description of what happened next, suffice to say that under certain, possibly very specific circumstances, water can move upwards. How?

CAPILLARY ACTION!

My face froze as I felt the rainwater creeping up my bumcrack. Slowly but inexorably – like a glacier – it made its cold passage.

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Epilogue:

In the intensely frustrating manner of HP Lovecraft, I dare not – must not – say any more. You would all go mad from reading it.

But, I for one will never NEVER leave my waterproofs at home again, and when I look into the cloudy sky forever more will I struggle to suppress a shudder.