Overheard at the poker tables recently:
“Dude, this flop is squatchy!”

Overheard at the bar:
“Oh God, this place is getting too squatchy, let’s leave…”

Overheard on the commuter train:
“Once you get beyond three layers of shell companies, it gets a little squatchy.”

So I guess in poker, “squatchy” refers to situations that look hairy and full of potential monsters. Makes sense.

As for the ladies at the bar, “squatchy” seems to indicate too many old, hairy, marginal characters hoping for a paranormal encounter with regular night-lifers. And that too makes sense given that I was standing right next to them.

In business, “squatchy” seems to mean murky, quasi-mythical, and potentially troubling. Sort of like “Byzantine” but with an added dimension of monstrousness and hairiness. Again, very apt.

Funny that such a useful adjective could be derived from a noun that might not exist.  Language is just so squatchy.

So squatchy, in fact, that we can easily envision other potential usages:

“She totally squatched the conversation.”

“He squatched around the northwest for a while before making his fortune in New York.”

“Put it in the squatch file.”

“Stop squatching, start living!”

Right now, none of these expressions means anything, but it just sounds so good, one day it’s got to mean something.

© The Squatch