This is the week that many people go on and on about how much they love fall. “No more hot, sticky weather!” “The trees are so pretty!” “Pumpkin Spice Latte is back!!” Well those who “love fall” are fools.
Fall is the worst of the months. Gone is the ability to run to the store real quick to get some milk in just your t-shirt, shorts and flip flops. Now its find long pants, put on socks and closed toed shoes and throw on a sweatshirt and a jacket–even if you’re only going to be out for a few minutes. Now the leaves pile up along the fence and in the gutter–where they breakdown in a goopy mess that combines with all of those little twigs and branches to form an impenetrable barrier that requires getting up on the wobbly ladder to clear every other week.
Fall is getting less sunshine every day–driving to work in the dark and arriving home as the sun sets. It’s the chill north wind catching you by surprise on a damp, cloudy morning. It’s that first flurry that reminds you of the five months of misery just ahead. The real colors of fall are the brown grass in your yard–and the white of frost every morning. And its the sound of money going up your chimney as the furnace kicks on for the first time in five months. The smell of the registers getting hot for the first time makes you think your house is on fire–that is if you can smell it over the scent of fake pumpkin spice that permeates everything from coffee, to donuts to soy candles.
Why do you think the nicest days of fall are called “Indian SUMMER” (or “Indigenous Peoples Post-Autumnal Equinox Temperature Anomaly” for you snowflakes that are easily offended)? When we have a cool spell in the middle of summer do we call it “Norwegian Fall” or “Canadian Autumn”? For retailers, fall started two months ago–after they replaced back to school items in July with Halloween displays. And that means Frankenstein will be replaced by Santa Claus by mid-October–which should depress everyone even more than the change in the weather.
So for those of you who “love fall” so much. Why don’t you stop by my place to rake up the leaves, clean out the gutters, winterize the house and pay for the increasing utility bills–so I can get out and enjoy all of the “joys of the season” that some you think actually exist at this time of year.
