Fug

No, the title of this post should not be interpreted via the urban dictionary. I'm talking about fug as a noun, and one that I've noticed my favorite British authors using quite a bit. Why have I never seen this word in American literature? Am I blind, or is it just not a word we use here?

According to Merriam Webster, fug is the stuffy atmosphere of a poorly ventilated space; also : a stuffy or malodorous emanation. I've been thinking about this a lot lately because it's the only way to describe the state of my apartment.

It's been unusually hot and humid in the city the past few days, and it's caused me to actually have to turn on my A/C units before June. I got a cat in November, and she was rather scared when I fired them up. For energy saving reasons, I only either run the one in the kitchen or the one in the bedroom, depending on what area I am occupying at the time. So when I come out of my bedroom in the morning, I am greeting by a sticky, clingy rush of humid air that makes moving around fully clothed particularly tortuous. And things are starting to get malodorous.

I've also noticed that the fug is spreading to my brain. I can't seem to focus on anything, including writing a blog post. To combat this, I purchased something called Uncle Lee's Energy Booster Tea, which promises that its blend of tea and herbs "provides short term increase in alertness and stamina." For a few hours after imbibing, I felt rather perky. So the stamina part was true, but though I felt alert, the fug was still covering my brain. I was jumping from one task to another and forgetting what it was that I just did, all the while being distracted by horrible songs hijacking my brain, like Countess LuAnn de Lesseps' "Money Can't Buy You Class." Shudder.

I don't know if this is good for me. I thought I could trust a product from someone name Uncle Lee. He would be a kindly older gentleman who wore bow ties and wingtips and packaged my tea with a smile, blending herbs inside a piece of cheesecloth. He would make the tea especially to address the fug, and the fug would be frightened away by Traditional Chinese Medicine. But again, my imagination and reality are at odds. Uncle Lee is probably about as real as the Natty Boh man, and his tea company is probably owned by Coca-Cola. But still, I wanted to believe that there was somebody out there to dispel this. Maybe I should ask some British authors. JK Rowling or Zadie Smith would surely know all about clearing mental fug. Maybe a cup of plain old PG Tips would do the trick.