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Don’t ever trust August. This morning dawned pleasant, with a nice breeze and a touch of coolness on the air. August will do this and then knife you right in the kidney later on with 20 straight days of 103-degree, blistering, oppressive heat once it lulls you into that false sense of security. Don’t trust August because August is absolutely terrible.
If the calendar year is the long haul from Dallas to South Padre, August is getting bottlenecked in Austin gridlock, going 20 miles in six hours with a busted-ass air conditioner because a truck laden with Texas Longhorn-branded Corona gear jackknifed at the Dean Keeton exit.
August is the bloated, self-indulgent live album your favorite band puts out when it doesn’t feel like being creative.
August goes to Baskin-Robbins and tries 15 samples, gets a paper cup of water, then leaves without purchasing anything.
August is the only 31-day month with zero chance of a work holiday.
Speaking of holidays, here is what August celebrates:
Digestive Tract Paralysis (DTP) Month
National Water Quality Month
National Dippin' Dots Month
Get Acquainted with Kiwifruit Month
National Goat Cheese Month
National Panini Month
National Mustard Day (United States)
National Creamsicle Day (United States)
National Vanilla Custard Day (United States)
Long Tan Day (Australia)
National Potato Day (United States)
National Pecan Torte Day (United States)
National Lemon Juice Day (United States)
National Trail Mix Day (United States)
Just read the entire Wikipedia entry for August events if you are suffering the throes of insomnia. May as well call it “America is Dumb About Food Month”.
August is the 1983 Econoline van that cuts you off in traffic and then stalls right in front of you in the middle lane, leaving the rest of the traffic to stream past you on either side like water around a boulder.
August is pouring a giant bowl of your favorite cereal and then finding that there is only 1/2” of stagnant milk in the carton.
August only has four anagrams:
Usa Gut
Usa Tug
A Gut Us
A Tug Us
These sound like Scandinavian death metal lyrics or Todd Orlando defensive schemes, one of the two.
You can almost spell “Austin” with the letters in “August” but you’re missing an “in”. Charlie Strong was born in August. He was short on “win.” Guess this thing goes deeper than we thought.
You want culture? Turn to any other month. Here are the works of art that pay homage to August:
Light in August: The original redneck parade. Only Faulkner book I can recall where a dude gets castrated.
August and Everything After: plaintive, whiny, ‘90s pseudo-pop by the original Starbucks barista. Hard pass.
August, Osage County: bunch of terrific actors making you depressed as shit for 2 hours. Set in Oklahoma.
There are plenty of others, probably, but those are the most well-known, and that in itself is sad.
August has two sports: Baseball and Shit Somehow Even More Boring Than Baseball.
August live-tweets C-SPAN2.
Then August quote-tweets itself with nothing but fire emoji.
It’s fucking hot in August, you see.
August is a houseguest who dicks with your thermostat, TV, and appliance settings, rearranges the furniture, and leaves a stench in the guest bathroom that lingers for weeks upon finally departing days after they promised.
August is the absolute worst. August is the pinnacle of college football offseason stupidity, a time for the echo chamber to fill itself to just under a bursting threshold with the most vapid, dangerous, and prolific material imaginable: empty hot air.
August is terrible. Enjoy your Augusts, monsters.