January 13, 2025 • 19 mins
We’re in the middle of summer down here in Australia and that means it’s beach time, it’s pool time, it’s….shvitz time. Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, everyone has a shvitz story. This week, Tami and Dash’s shame is your entertainment as they recount their most embarrassing Shvitzy Stories of summers past.
If you like this episode, you might like:
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/what-you-missed-while-you-were-at-the-beach
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/alcohol-sex-campfires-world-adult-jewish-summer-camp
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/books-family-angst-a-synagogue-murder-and-learning-to-be-alone
Email your feedback and voice memos here: ashamed@thejewishindependent.com.au
Subscribe to The Jewish Independent's bi-weekly newsletter: jewishindependent.com.au
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
It's Summer Shames, it's Summer Shames, it's Summer
Shames.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hmm, he says he's not ashamed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I'm ashamed, you're ashamed, they should be ashamed.
We call that repressed shame.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, she needs to tame the shame and move on.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Is it a Jewish thing, maybe?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
You tell me.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm Tammy Sussman and in this special series of A
Shame to Admit, I'm going tosqueeze some of the chewiest
shames out of TJI's ExecutiveDirector, dr Dachshund Lawrence.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
While your third cousin over shares her chewiest
faux pas.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to your weekly dose of Summer Shames
Dash.
Before we start, I just want tosay I'm sorry if you can hear a
bit of background noise intoday's recording.
I'm recording on an upstairslevel of my apartment.
(01:04):
It gets really hot up here.
I had to turn the airconditioning on.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Oh, me too, I got it cranked today.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Oh really, Even in Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, it's a hot one today.
It's like 31, 32 degrees, youknow peak summer Schvitzfest.
Total schvitzfest.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
He's checking the armpits.
I'm okay, Do you just do yougive him a bit of a dab just to
check for moistness, he'ssniffing his fingers.
That's what he's doing.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
You would do that right.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I don't sniff my fingers.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
What do you do?
Do you then get the nose to theI?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
just raise the armpit and just subtly look at the
artwork behind myself.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Okay, how are you going in the schvitzflint today?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Fine, I love deodorant marketed towards men.
I prefer the smell, ooh.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Any particular variety.
You arexone a gal.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
A length Africa carna gal.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
No, I really like this old school.
One in a green stick, oh my God.
It's called Brut or something.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Brut.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yes, that's so I like it.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Wow, okay, yeah, cool , yeah, it's very.
Does your dad wear it?
I don't think so, but it's verytimeless, very, very much a
baby boomer energy yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, and that's me in a nutshell.
Yeah, yeah, and that's me in anutshell.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, you've got a birthday coming up, just saying.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So keep that in mind, bestie.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
There's nothing better than smelling good, right
.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I don't have a whole lot of colognes, just a few
bottles to choose from.
I've got something for summer,something for winter.
Do you?
Yeah, yeah, I do.
I like to start the day with aparticular fragrance or smell
that's going to, you know, liftme and get me feeling good for
the day.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Interesting.
I also don't want to smellsomeone else's cologne or
perfume.
I want to smell people'spheromones to see if I can trust
them.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Really.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, can't stand a strong smell on someone else,
like an artificial smell.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Even if it's a nice cologne or nice-.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Well, that's so subjective, so it might be nice
to you, but it might beoffensive to someone else.
Okay Dash, it's a schvitz-ytime of year If you don't speak
Yiddish.
Schvitz-y, of course, meanssweaty.
It's a sweaty time of year andI wanted to know if you had any
shameful Shvitsi stories.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Funny, you should ask , tammy.
So I was in Japan a few yearsback on a multi-day hike on my
own in the height of theJapanese summer.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Can't relate yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
It was obscenely hot, like we have hot summers here
in Australia, of course, andI've hiked in some very hot days
in parts of Tasmania andVictoria.
Nothing came close to how hotthis was, because it was also
quite, you know, quite sticky.
It was very, very humid, andI'm hiking in a part of Japan
(04:06):
called the Kimono Kodo andkonnichiwa to our Japanese
listener.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Listeners.
I think we've got two andthey're in two different parts
of Japan.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, that's right, oh, that's right.
Our two Japanese listeners.
You'll know where I'm talkingabout.
So I'm hiking in Kimonokoto andbecause it's the height of
summer, like no one else is outthere doing it, because everyone
knows you don't go there andhike during.
It's just unpleasant.
And so I didn't see anyone onthe trail for really for a few
days.
Because it was so hot, becauseI could get I could kind of, you
(04:40):
know, wash down and clean downat the end of every day.
Where I was staying, I justtravelled very light and I
basically just wore the samepair of shorts and shirt all the
way through.
But I'm like hiking along and Ihaven't seen anyone for days on
end.
I mean, I'm seeing people atthe end of the days when I pull
into villages, but I'm notseeing other hikers.
And then, like, these two Swissgirls who were hiking together
(05:08):
come along, very attractive, andI'm sort of struck by how sort
of fortuitous this encounter is.
Here I am an Australian hikingon my own, haven't seen in a lot
of days, and I just happened tocome across these two beautiful
Swiss girls and we're chattingaway and the conversations.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Who seem very smart, really intelligent, who seem to
have wonderful personalities.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, yeah, all that too.
Thank you for filling in themost important part of the
detail there with regard to mynew travel companions.
Anyway, as the hike progressed,I kind of noticed more
intervals emerging in ourconversation, which is, you know
, a natural thing, but sort ofwondering why there was a shift
in the dynamic.
There was just a bit of adistance that was forming
(05:53):
between us by the end of theafternoon, like we're going to
the same village.
So it was sort of unusual thatby the end, like we weren't
talking anymore, they were sortof talking to each other.
But it was very odd becausepreviously, you know, we've sort
of been locked in conversation.
Anyway, I'd booked myaccommodation they hadn't, but
they decided they were going togo to somewhere else.
(06:15):
So I bid them farewell, knowingthat I was probably going to
see them on the trail the nextday, and sort of still wondering
why did that conversation justsort of cease and-.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Why did it fizzle?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, why did it fizzle?
That's right.
Anyway, get to this beautifulschoolhouse that's been
converted into a guest house andthe owner of the guest house
comes out and obviously he'sbeen waiting for me and he can't
speak English, but he getswithin shot of me and in like a
(06:46):
very hurried, very like frenziedway, sort of like grabs a towel
and grabs a block of soap and ascrubber and leads me very
quickly off to like an outdoorshower and he's sort of like
there's an urgency about him.
He's just like shower shower,shower shower, shower.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Oh my God, had you shat yourself.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
No, I hadn't shat myself, I was just-.
Did you just smell like you had?
I just smelled terrible becauseI was with only this one set of
clothes for the four or fivedays and it was ridiculously hot
and there was quite a lot ofshame attached to that incident.
On reflection Not now, I mean,obviously I'm laughing about it
(07:28):
now- Did you not know?
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Could you not smell yourself?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Like it wasn't, like I had no idea.
I think I knew that obviouslythere was, you know, a bit of
bloody odour emanating, but Ididn't really quite appreciate
just how bad it was.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Is it kind of like you always enjoy the smell of
your own farts a little bit morethan you should?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
I don't think it's quite like that with sweat.
I don't know, because you don'tyou can't really fully grasp
the sweat like the smell ofsweat.
I don't know, because you can'treally fully grasp the sweat
like the smell of sweat, I don'tthink I can.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
I have a very sharp sense of smell, so I think I
could Thank you for sharing thatshame.
That's actually a very goodstory and very appropriate for
summer and summer shames.
Some members of the generalpopulation do struggle with body
odour.
Are you someone who will tell afriend that they smell, or do
(08:20):
you just let someone else dothat?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I don't think I ever have.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Can you guess who gets allocated the task of being
the one to tell someone thatthey smell?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Is it you?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Of course it's me Right, right, okay.
When I was in drama school wewere a group of 24 people who
spent three years together andvery early on in the three-year
program it became clear that wewould be working very closely
together.
So we would have like two hoursof movement classes every day
(08:55):
where we'd get quite schvitzyand we'd have to pair up and
there were a few people withsome body odour.
There was one in particular.
His was terrible, lovely, somequestionable accidentally
antisemitic incidents, butoverall lovely.
Guy had a really bad BO issueand no one was saying anything.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, and you can't not right, Tammy, once you smell
that and once you get into yourlittle head that someone's got
to tell him.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
But the thing is, it's not like a work environment
where your desk is on the otherside of the room to theirs.
You don't have to come intocontact with them Like everyone
had to come into contact withhim and I drew the short straw.
I was given the task of beingthe one to talk to him because
he and I kind of vibrated on asimilar wavelength in a lot of
other ways.
I kind of got his neurospiciness in a way that other
(09:49):
people didn't.
So one day I pulled him asideand I said look, I need to talk
to you about something.
This is really serious.
Do you know that you have verystrong body odour?
And he looked at me and he saidno, I don't.
And I said you do.
I'm sorry to be the one tobreak the news to you.
(10:11):
I hate it when I give someonefeedback and you have to say
this person is so that they knowthat we've kind of conspired.
And I said the general consensusis that you have body odour.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, we've reviewed the evidence We've gathered
together and the consensus isyou stink and you need to do
something about it, yeah, and Isaid you know, do you want some
help?
Do you want some links Africa?
We can get you a gift pack.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
He needed more than links Africa.
In fact, one day I went over tohis house and actually I ran a
bath for him.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
You didn't.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I did.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Oh God.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
He got in.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Times were seriously desperate.
Hang on, he got in.
What is this, what?
Speaker 1 (10:56):
No, yeah, and I offered to do a load of washing
for him.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
No.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Their house was in shambles and I felt empathy
towards him and so I said wouldyou like me to do some washing
for you?
Yeah, he got in the bath andthen, years later, Did you do a
scrub down?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Did you sort of?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Scrub him down.
I offered to, but he wouldn'tlet me, so I respected those
boundaries.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
The boundaries.
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Years later he gave me a little piece of paper
folded up in class and I openedit up and it was a swastika with
the words join us on it.
And when I confronted him aboutit, he said no, it's not a
swastika, it's the buddha symbolthat the flipped swastika.
And I said yeah, but when yougive a jewish person a flipped
(11:47):
swastika with the words join uson top, the general vibe that a
Jew might get is that you'remaking an insensitive joke about
the Holocaust.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Oh God.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
That was the end of that.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
That was the end of that friendship.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Did you ever get to the bottom of the upside-down
swastika?
Speaker 1 (12:09):
He maintains that he was just making a light-hearted
joke.
But there were also a few otherincidents, like in a park where
we were throwing a ball to eachother and he said stop being
such a Jew and give me the ball.
And then after we graduated andthere was an intifada in Israel
, I did notice on his father'sFacebook page that he'd written
(12:30):
something about those people,meaning the Jews, anyway.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Somehow it comes back to anti-Semitism every time.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
It always does, and it just goes to show that the
stinkiest people on earth arealso the ones who hate the Jews
the most.
There I said it.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
What about me, though , because maybe I actually could
be one of the stinky ones?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I really don't think you are.
I think what happened in yourcase is that you just made a
really bad decision to not bringa change of clothes on a shitsy
hike for three days.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
And I was also getting a bit delirious because
I'd been out in the Japanesewilderness.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
You were dehydrated.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I was dehydrated.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Maybe those Swiss twins weren't Swiss twins at all
.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
It's quite possible that it was just me the whole
time and there was no one outthere.
I just imagined them, oh my God.
So I have just shared with youmy schvitzy, shameful story.
What about you?
What you got?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Okay, In 2005, I traveled to China.
The idea was to teach Englishas a second language, which is
what I did.
I went with a friend.
We were there in peak Chinesesummer.
It was boiling hot.
There was no getting around it.
It was like 24-7 schvitz.
(13:54):
Now, on this trip we met agroup of French people and I
quite fancied one of the peoplein the French group and one
night we went disco bowlingtogether.
It was a 24-hour disco bowlingclub.
We had a great time.
My friend took lots of pictureson his old digital camera.
(14:16):
We get home he uploads it ontothe laptop, as he used to do
back in 2005.
And we're flipping through someof the photos and I noticed
that there is a humongous sweatpatch on my ass.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And my crush has been there the whole night.
So I don't know, I don't know.
It was quite dim inside thedisco bowling club.
I don't know if he saw it ornot, but the friend that I went
travelling with thought it wouldbe funny to make sure that my
crush saw this sweat patch andhe emailed him a picture of it,
(14:57):
of me.
Some friend and my sweaty bumSome friend, and for the rest of
the trip he called me a numberof names, but included in that
list of names was sweaty bum,sweaty bumum Bush Pig Miss
McDonald's 2005.
That was my full nickname.
So that's my shameful bum sweatstory.
(15:20):
But it has a happy ending.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
And I'm sharing this ending because I want to instill
hope in all the 18-year-oldswho may have-.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Sweaty bums.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Sweaty bums or any kind of stain on the bum.
That's not ideal you know,Maybe it's a period stain, Maybe
you sat on something that'squestionable Is it chocolate or
is it a bit of poo?
So the happy ending is that Istill managed to bag the French
(15:53):
guy even after he saw my sweatybum.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Could you come back from sharting?
Do you think Like if the liquidhad actually been because you
had sharted, could you have comeback from that one?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I don't think so, Probably not no yeah, I, I don't
think so.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
No, look, I think it's a bit discriminatory to
actually say you can't recoverfrom a shart, because as an
ashkenazi jew, the chances ofsharting on a daily basis quite
high.
So I think if you were to say,look, if there's a shart, it's
not going to happen, I thinkthat's anti-semitic and it's
specifically racist againstAshkenazi Jews who are quite
(16:33):
partial to a bit of a shart.
Okay, there's a lot ofinflammatory bowel, a lot of
irritable bowel.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I didn't realize that .
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, it's never happened to me, surprisingly.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Okay.
Is there a shart clinic in theeastern suburbs of Sydney, a
place you can go to work throughyour sharting issues?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I'm going to send an email to-.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Your gastroenterologist friend.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Mark Mullman, colorectal surgeon, who
practices out of SydneyColorectal Associates, randwick,
and I'm going to say Mark, I'vehad some experience in branding
and have you consideredchanging the name of your
practice to the Shart Clinic.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
They would come from far and wide, from Sydney's east
.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
They already do Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I didn't realise that it's a thing you didn't?
No, I mean, I knew thatsharting was a thing, I just
didn't realise it was big in theJCOM, realise it was big in the
JCOM.
There needs to be like a JCAappeal devoted to addressing
sharting, like it's an annualappeal where they you know, they
(17:43):
seek out funds to To provideassistance.
Financial assistance, yeah,financial assistance to support
members of the community thatare living with sharting.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Are we both going to get fired from this?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Everyone sharts from time to time.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Everybody sharts sometimes Sometimes.
You've been listening to SummerShames, the Shvitsi Shvesta
podcast of A Shame to Admit.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Presented by the Jewish Independent and hosted by
me, dash Lawrence and TammySussman.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
These episodes are edited by Nick King.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
If you like what we're doing, it's time to wipe
the sunscreen off your hands andleave a review.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Or if you're in a different hemisphere, dash,
because we forgot that some ofour listeners live overseas and
it's not summer there.
Remove your mittens and give ussome stars.
We'll take five of them, thanks.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
As always.
Thanks for the support and welook forward to Kitzel your ears
next week.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
You chose Yiddish.
That's very racist.
What about koses in Ladino?
Or dig dug in Hebrew?
Tickle, give your ears a littletickle, or zug zug.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
I only know Kitzel.
I've got a book about Kitzel.
Okay, everybody hurts.
It's Summer Shames, it's Summer Shames, it's Summer
Shames.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hmm, he says he's not ashamed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I'm ashamed, you're ashamed, they should be ashamed.
We call that repressed shame.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, she needs to tame the shame and move on.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Is it a Jewish thing, maybe?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
You tell me.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm Tammy Sussman and in this special series of A
Shame to Admit, I'm going tosqueeze some of the chewiest
shames out of TJI's ExecutiveDirector, dr Dachshund Lawrence.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
While your third cousin over shares her chewiest
faux pas.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to your weekly dose of Summer Shames
Dash.
Before we start, I just want tosay I'm sorry if you can hear a
bit of background noise intoday's recording.
I'm recording on an upstairslevel of my apartment.
(01:04):
It gets really hot up here.
I had to turn the airconditioning on.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Oh, me too, I got it cranked today.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Oh really, Even in Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, it's a hot one today.
It's like 31, 32 degrees, youknow peak summer Schvitzfest.
Total schvitzfest.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
He's checking the armpits.
I'm okay, Do you just do yougive him a bit of a dab just to
check for moistness, he'ssniffing his fingers.
That's what he's doing.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
You would do that right.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I don't sniff my fingers.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
What do you do?
Do you then get the nose to theI?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
just raise the armpit and just subtly look at the
artwork behind myself.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Okay, how are you going in the schvitzflint today?
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Fine, I love deodorant marketed towards men.
I prefer the smell, ooh.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Any particular variety.
You arexone a gal.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
A length Africa carna gal.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
No, I really like this old school.
One in a green stick, oh my God.
It's called Brut or something.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Brut.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yes, that's so I like it.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Wow, okay, yeah, cool , yeah, it's very.
Does your dad wear it?
I don't think so, but it's verytimeless, very, very much a
baby boomer energy yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, and that's me in a nutshell.
Yeah, yeah, and that's me in anutshell.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, you've got a birthday coming up, just saying.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So keep that in mind, bestie.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
There's nothing better than smelling good, right
.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I don't have a whole lot of colognes, just a few
bottles to choose from.
I've got something for summer,something for winter.
Do you?
Yeah, yeah, I do.
I like to start the day with aparticular fragrance or smell
that's going to, you know, liftme and get me feeling good for
the day.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Interesting.
I also don't want to smellsomeone else's cologne or
perfume.
I want to smell people'spheromones to see if I can trust
them.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Really.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, can't stand a strong smell on someone else,
like an artificial smell.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Even if it's a nice cologne or nice-.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Well, that's so subjective, so it might be nice
to you, but it might beoffensive to someone else.
Okay Dash, it's a schvitz-ytime of year If you don't speak
Yiddish.
Schvitz-y, of course, meanssweaty.
It's a sweaty time of year andI wanted to know if you had any
shameful Shvitsi stories.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Funny, you should ask , tammy.
So I was in Japan a few yearsback on a multi-day hike on my
own in the height of theJapanese summer.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Can't relate yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
It was obscenely hot, like we have hot summers here
in Australia, of course, andI've hiked in some very hot days
in parts of Tasmania andVictoria.
Nothing came close to how hotthis was, because it was also
quite, you know, quite sticky.
It was very, very humid, andI'm hiking in a part of Japan
(04:06):
called the Kimono Kodo andkonnichiwa to our Japanese
listener.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Listeners.
I think we've got two andthey're in two different parts
of Japan.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, that's right, oh, that's right.
Our two Japanese listeners.
You'll know where I'm talkingabout.
So I'm hiking in Kimonokoto andbecause it's the height of
summer, like no one else is outthere doing it, because everyone
knows you don't go there andhike during.
It's just unpleasant.
And so I didn't see anyone onthe trail for really for a few
days.
Because it was so hot, becauseI could get I could kind of, you
(04:40):
know, wash down and clean downat the end of every day.
Where I was staying, I justtravelled very light and I
basically just wore the samepair of shorts and shirt all the
way through.
But I'm like hiking along and Ihaven't seen anyone for days on
end.
I mean, I'm seeing people atthe end of the days when I pull
into villages, but I'm notseeing other hikers.
And then, like, these two Swissgirls who were hiking together
(05:08):
come along, very attractive, andI'm sort of struck by how sort
of fortuitous this encounter is.
Here I am an Australian hikingon my own, haven't seen in a lot
of days, and I just happened tocome across these two beautiful
Swiss girls and we're chattingaway and the conversations.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Who seem very smart, really intelligent, who seem to
have wonderful personalities.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, yeah, all that too.
Thank you for filling in themost important part of the
detail there with regard to mynew travel companions.
Anyway, as the hike progressed,I kind of noticed more
intervals emerging in ourconversation, which is, you know
, a natural thing, but sort ofwondering why there was a shift
in the dynamic.
There was just a bit of adistance that was forming
(05:53):
between us by the end of theafternoon, like we're going to
the same village.
So it was sort of unusual thatby the end, like we weren't
talking anymore, they were sortof talking to each other.
But it was very odd becausepreviously, you know, we've sort
of been locked in conversation.
Anyway, I'd booked myaccommodation they hadn't, but
they decided they were going togo to somewhere else.
(06:15):
So I bid them farewell, knowingthat I was probably going to
see them on the trail the nextday, and sort of still wondering
why did that conversation justsort of cease and-.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Why did it fizzle?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, why did it fizzle?
That's right.
Anyway, get to this beautifulschoolhouse that's been
converted into a guest house andthe owner of the guest house
comes out and obviously he'sbeen waiting for me and he can't
speak English, but he getswithin shot of me and in like a
(06:46):
very hurried, very like frenziedway, sort of like grabs a towel
and grabs a block of soap and ascrubber and leads me very
quickly off to like an outdoorshower and he's sort of like
there's an urgency about him.
He's just like shower shower,shower shower, shower.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Oh my God, had you shat yourself.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
No, I hadn't shat myself, I was just-.
Did you just smell like you had?
I just smelled terrible becauseI was with only this one set of
clothes for the four or fivedays and it was ridiculously hot
and there was quite a lot ofshame attached to that incident.
On reflection Not now, I mean,obviously I'm laughing about it
(07:28):
now- Did you not know?
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Could you not smell yourself?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Like it wasn't, like I had no idea.
I think I knew that obviouslythere was, you know, a bit of
bloody odour emanating, but Ididn't really quite appreciate
just how bad it was.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Is it kind of like you always enjoy the smell of
your own farts a little bit morethan you should?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
I don't think it's quite like that with sweat.
I don't know, because you don'tyou can't really fully grasp
the sweat like the smell ofsweat.
I don't know, because you can'treally fully grasp the sweat
like the smell of sweat, I don'tthink I can.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
I have a very sharp sense of smell, so I think I
could Thank you for sharing thatshame.
That's actually a very goodstory and very appropriate for
summer and summer shames.
Some members of the generalpopulation do struggle with body
odour.
Are you someone who will tell afriend that they smell, or do
(08:20):
you just let someone else dothat?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I don't think I ever have.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Can you guess who gets allocated the task of being
the one to tell someone thatthey smell?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Is it you?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Of course it's me Right, right, okay.
When I was in drama school wewere a group of 24 people who
spent three years together andvery early on in the three-year
program it became clear that wewould be working very closely
together.
So we would have like two hoursof movement classes every day
(08:55):
where we'd get quite schvitzyand we'd have to pair up and
there were a few people withsome body odour.
There was one in particular.
His was terrible, lovely, somequestionable accidentally
antisemitic incidents, butoverall lovely.
Guy had a really bad BO issueand no one was saying anything.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, and you can't not right, Tammy, once you smell
that and once you get into yourlittle head that someone's got
to tell him.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
But the thing is, it's not like a work environment
where your desk is on the otherside of the room to theirs.
You don't have to come intocontact with them Like everyone
had to come into contact withhim and I drew the short straw.
I was given the task of beingthe one to talk to him because
he and I kind of vibrated on asimilar wavelength in a lot of
other ways.
I kind of got his neurospiciness in a way that other
(09:49):
people didn't.
So one day I pulled him asideand I said look, I need to talk
to you about something.
This is really serious.
Do you know that you have verystrong body odour?
And he looked at me and he saidno, I don't.
And I said you do.
I'm sorry to be the one tobreak the news to you.
(10:11):
I hate it when I give someonefeedback and you have to say
this person is so that they knowthat we've kind of conspired.
And I said the general consensusis that you have body odour.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah, we've reviewed the evidence We've gathered
together and the consensus isyou stink and you need to do
something about it, yeah, and Isaid you know, do you want some
help?
Do you want some links Africa?
We can get you a gift pack.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
He needed more than links Africa.
In fact, one day I went over tohis house and actually I ran a
bath for him.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
You didn't.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I did.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Oh God.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
He got in.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Times were seriously desperate.
Hang on, he got in.
What is this, what?
Speaker 1 (10:56):
No, yeah, and I offered to do a load of washing
for him.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
No.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Their house was in shambles and I felt empathy
towards him and so I said wouldyou like me to do some washing
for you?
Yeah, he got in the bath andthen, years later, Did you do a
scrub down?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Did you sort of?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Scrub him down.
I offered to, but he wouldn'tlet me, so I respected those
boundaries.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
The boundaries.
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Years later he gave me a little piece of paper
folded up in class and I openedit up and it was a swastika with
the words join us on it.
And when I confronted him aboutit, he said no, it's not a
swastika, it's the buddha symbolthat the flipped swastika.
And I said yeah, but when yougive a jewish person a flipped
(11:47):
swastika with the words join uson top, the general vibe that a
Jew might get is that you'remaking an insensitive joke about
the Holocaust.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Oh God.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
That was the end of that.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
That was the end of that friendship.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Did you ever get to the bottom of the upside-down
swastika?
Speaker 1 (12:09):
He maintains that he was just making a light-hearted
joke.
But there were also a few otherincidents, like in a park where
we were throwing a ball to eachother and he said stop being
such a Jew and give me the ball.
And then after we graduated andthere was an intifada in Israel
, I did notice on his father'sFacebook page that he'd written
(12:30):
something about those people,meaning the Jews, anyway.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Somehow it comes back to anti-Semitism every time.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
It always does, and it just goes to show that the
stinkiest people on earth arealso the ones who hate the Jews
the most.
There I said it.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
What about me, though , because maybe I actually could
be one of the stinky ones?
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I really don't think you are.
I think what happened in yourcase is that you just made a
really bad decision to not bringa change of clothes on a shitsy
hike for three days.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
And I was also getting a bit delirious because
I'd been out in the Japanesewilderness.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
You were dehydrated.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I was dehydrated.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Maybe those Swiss twins weren't Swiss twins at all
.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
It's quite possible that it was just me the whole
time and there was no one outthere.
I just imagined them, oh my God.
So I have just shared with youmy schvitzy, shameful story.
What about you?
What you got?
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Okay, In 2005, I traveled to China.
The idea was to teach Englishas a second language, which is
what I did.
I went with a friend.
We were there in peak Chinesesummer.
It was boiling hot.
There was no getting around it.
It was like 24-7 schvitz.
(13:54):
Now, on this trip we met agroup of French people and I
quite fancied one of the peoplein the French group and one
night we went disco bowlingtogether.
It was a 24-hour disco bowlingclub.
We had a great time.
My friend took lots of pictureson his old digital camera.
(14:16):
We get home he uploads it ontothe laptop, as he used to do
back in 2005.
And we're flipping through someof the photos and I noticed
that there is a humongous sweatpatch on my ass.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And my crush has been there the whole night.
So I don't know, I don't know.
It was quite dim inside thedisco bowling club.
I don't know if he saw it ornot, but the friend that I went
travelling with thought it wouldbe funny to make sure that my
crush saw this sweat patch andhe emailed him a picture of it,
(14:57):
of me.
Some friend and my sweaty bumSome friend, and for the rest of
the trip he called me a numberof names, but included in that
list of names was sweaty bum,sweaty bumum Bush Pig Miss
McDonald's 2005.
That was my full nickname.
So that's my shameful bum sweatstory.
(15:20):
But it has a happy ending.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
And I'm sharing this ending because I want to instill
hope in all the 18-year-oldswho may have-.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Sweaty bums.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Sweaty bums or any kind of stain on the bum.
That's not ideal you know,Maybe it's a period stain, Maybe
you sat on something that'squestionable Is it chocolate or
is it a bit of poo?
So the happy ending is that Istill managed to bag the French
(15:53):
guy even after he saw my sweatybum.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Could you come back from sharting?
Do you think Like if the liquidhad actually been because you
had sharted, could you have comeback from that one?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I don't think so, Probably not no yeah, I, I don't
think so.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
No, look, I think it's a bit discriminatory to
actually say you can't recoverfrom a shart, because as an
ashkenazi jew, the chances ofsharting on a daily basis quite
high.
So I think if you were to say,look, if there's a shart, it's
not going to happen, I thinkthat's anti-semitic and it's
specifically racist againstAshkenazi Jews who are quite
(16:33):
partial to a bit of a shart.
Okay, there's a lot ofinflammatory bowel, a lot of
irritable bowel.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I didn't realize that .
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, it's never happened to me, surprisingly.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Okay.
Is there a shart clinic in theeastern suburbs of Sydney, a
place you can go to work throughyour sharting issues?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I'm going to send an email to-.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Your gastroenterologist friend.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Mark Mullman, colorectal surgeon, who
practices out of SydneyColorectal Associates, randwick,
and I'm going to say Mark, I'vehad some experience in branding
and have you consideredchanging the name of your
practice to the Shart Clinic.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
They would come from far and wide, from Sydney's east
.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
They already do Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I didn't realise that it's a thing you didn't?
No, I mean, I knew thatsharting was a thing, I just
didn't realise it was big in theJCOM, realise it was big in the
JCOM.
There needs to be like a JCAappeal devoted to addressing
sharting, like it's an annualappeal where they you know, they
(17:43):
seek out funds to To provideassistance.
Financial assistance, yeah,financial assistance to support
members of the community thatare living with sharting.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Are we both going to get fired from this?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Everyone sharts from time to time.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Everybody sharts sometimes Sometimes.
You've been listening to SummerShames, the Shvitsi Shvesta
podcast of A Shame to Admit.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Presented by the Jewish Independent and hosted by
me, dash Lawrence and TammySussman.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
These episodes are edited by Nick King.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
If you like what we're doing, it's time to wipe
the sunscreen off your hands andleave a review.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Or if you're in a different hemisphere, dash,
because we forgot that some ofour listeners live overseas and
it's not summer there.
Remove your mittens and give ussome stars.
We'll take five of them, thanks.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
As always.
Thanks for the support and welook forward to Kitzel your ears
next week.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
You chose Yiddish.
That's very racist.
What about koses in Ladino?
Or dig dug in Hebrew?
Tickle, give your ears a littletickle, or zug zug.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
I only know Kitzel.
I've got a book about Kitzel.
Okay, everybody hurts.
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