I had a friend in high school who used to live by the phrase, “Nothing good ever happens in August.”

I really do mean that, literally. For one month during the summer, every single year, if you called her up and asked her to hang out…go to the movies…go camping, whatever, she would simply respond with, “It’s August.” Then she would hang up.

No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t get her to leave the house during this one apparently awful month. And you know what? Now that I’m a writer, I finally think I get it.

There’s a reason the word August has many, many letters in common with the following words:

Angst.

Anguish.

Aghast.

Grunt.

Gush.

Gusty.

Used.

Sigh.

Stu. (Or stew, if you prefer–the verb, not the noun.)

And finally, Ugh.

And I’m afraid that’s all there is today, kids. Because…it’s August.