Diaper Rash Dash

 Busy week. Lots of cargo in small parcels, lots of time on the phone, and being rained on too, on several occasions, so lots of diaper rash too. 

    It sucks being almost 50 and still getting chafed on my 'taint, legs, buttcrack and giggleberries. All combined, yeah, diaper rash. Wearing wet drawers for 12 hours straight, coupled with lots of walking. It's been like that off and on the past few weeks, at least a couple of days a week with this frigging weather and our busy schedule. 

    When I were a younger younker, I discovered Gold Bond. Good for staving off the effects of mild Swamp Ass.  When I went all in full-time as a lobsterman, I discovered Bag Balm. 

 Bag Balm was my savior in the late 90's.  It's plain old udder cream for cows. Some sort of medicated Vaseline because apparently cow udders are sensitive and prone to chapping.   Here's why it's important. 

  OK, you're a hard working guy in a wet environment in an intensely physical job.  Diaper rash for sure happens because your clothes are wet 2 hours into a 12 hour shift. Whether it's seawater or sweat, salty water-soaked clothing chafes, and it happens fast.  Hence, after a single day your danglies are hairless and cherry red and giving off enough heat to toast a marshmallow, and you're doing the Cowboy Shuffle, walking like a man who just spent 2 days bareback on a bony-assed horse. 

     Yeah, the hairless part is graphic, right? Ever get an Indian Burn? Chafes the hair off your forearm before it actually breaks the skin. So it goes with a wet pair of fruit of the looms and The Twins if you're running up and down deck in foul weather gear all day every day.  The testicles you know and love are gone, replaced by an angry sack of hate and pain and despair the exact color of one of those kickballs from grade school gym class. Fire. Engine. Red. 

      OK, so the journeyman tradesman learns early on about Gold Bond- mentholated absorbent baby powder- the yellow can for your boots, orblue can if you're hardcore; and the special green can for your matrimonial bits.  Like a cool breeze through your BVD's on a hot day, Gold Bond Green does what Calgon can't- it takes you away to a better place, at least emotionally. 

 So, you'd think that keeping your ground tackle dry is the secret of longevity and not chafing if you're working in a wet and dirty place... and you're right...

 But you're also wrong. 

         At some point, you either need to put a gold bond dispenser between your legs or you have to accept that you're beyond where Gold Bond can help.  It's sort of like when you realize a couple of band-aids aren't going to be enough and you've got to tell your father that you need to go get stitches. 

 No amount of Gold Bond is going to save your nuts when you're sweating or soaked enough that you have to pour salty water our of your boots every little while. 

   So, while it seems counterintuitive, at some point, you need to accept that whatever solution may be required to save your marbles, it's not going to involve trying to keep them dry.  In fact, the opposite is true.  Like a car engine, the secret is in reducing friction. And to do that, you need to displace the salt water as the liquid medium between adjoining parts. 

    Enter Bag Balm.  Balm for your Bag. 

           Medicated Petroleum jelly is non-polar. It isn't water-soluble.  What it is, is sticky. But it doesn't stick to materials that are waterlogged. In fact, in a wet environment, Bag Balm  sticks to the surface you smear it on, provided that surface is more or less impermeable and solid, like, say, human skin. In wet conditions, Bag Balm becomes slippery as all get-out.  Friction is eliminated. 

 So, like a saturation diver, before starting a Diaper Rash sort of day, you've got to pre-prime your butt and nuts with Bag Balm, even before you get damp. In fact, it feels pretty gross until you're working. Then it feels pretty good. And if you're suffered before, it's a miracle. 

      One funny thing, with all the reduced friction downstairs, my average walking pace picks up an extra half knot too.