Sogsour

Sogsour was how we found it, so ‘sogsour’ is what we called it. In its creation there were equal parts chance and intention. There was something of that smell of a car mat after-the-window-has-been-left-open-during-a-rainstorm smell about it. Like the end of a second day in the same, sweaty t-shirt, chilly and damp to the touch, or like an old sponge, from which milk has been inadequately rinsed. And there’s something vaguely porcine about it as well: probably not kosher, if not unclean. Ideally the word would never have needed to be invented at all, but so much is thrust upon us. On second thought, chance probably played a significantly greater role than invention. Of course now I am glad we have it. May it one day attain the authority granted only by children in spelling bees: “an adjective describing any object which is both moist to the touch and sour to smell. S, O, G, S, O, U, R: sogsour.”