Oh, Fall.  My favorite season. 

Air, crisp and cool.  The aroma of burning firewood. Foliage, bright with color.  On these autumn nights, I fall asleep to TV commentators detailing electoral college expectations.  And every morning, I awake to a mouthful of tiny tooth bits, the result of seriously-worried-about-Ohio grinding.  [Did you know that Ohio’s state flag is not rectangular, but pennant shaped?  Do you know that if you Google “Ohio Facts” a top result is: “A human head remains conscious for around 20 seconds after being decapitated”?]  So, I worry.  But please, let’s not make this about Ohio.  Or me.  

Fall, back to fall.

Halloween. Soon there will be a gaggle of little costumed goblins ringing my doorbell, sing-songing “Trick or treat!”  I’m dressing as a NXIVM cult member and really got into the part by permanently branding my pubic region with “KR,” for cult leader, Keith Raniere.  [I’m a big Kelly Ripa fan, so it’s a “KR” brand I won’t regret.]  My plan is to greet trick-or-treaters by opening the door and shrieking, “Have you not heard of Covid, you callous carriers of death???!!” Then, after their parents rush forward to pull them away from me and my still-oozing branding, I will hurl candy corn at them until they’ve gone.  And even though I hate candy corn, and mostly just want to throw it, I will eat huge handfuls of it because I am super-stressed about Ohio.  And Pennsylvania.  And Florida. 

Did I mention that it’s pumpkin season? It doesn’t end with Halloween.  It actually doesn’t end...like, ever. I am not kidding that pumpkin flavored or scented anything makes me fully homicidal… and not in a good way.  I fantasize about pumpkin carving, slashing and stabbing in a Donald Junior-esque ‘roid rage, not stopping until I’m covered in orange flesh, coming to only as my husband pries the knife from my clenched fist, and whispers soothingly, “But Biden is leading in Florida.”  

Let’s pivot to the positive.  Thanksgiving is coming, my favorite holiday. And by then we’ll have election results, right?  I mean, won’t we???  Because I am seriously running out of teeth to grind.  And if the result is not the one I’ve hoped for, well, I am considering a move to Montenegro, one of the last countries on Earth still willing to accept Americans.  That relocation will involve some pretty complicated logistics what with the kids, schools, selling our house and most notably, finding Montenegro on a map.  Interesting fact: Since 1852, Montenegro has had eight national flags, all of them rectangular.

More happy news:  My children are coming home for Thanksgiving. So that’s great, at least it will be after I let them out of our unfinished basement after seven days and nights of quarantining.  Really look forward to being with family again; somehow, just knowing they’ll be in the house, warms my heart.  Kind of the way I hope those space heaters I ordered warm the basement because, boy, it is FREEZING down there!

And lastly, just to round out these good times, this weekend, we look forward to Daylight Savings time, turning our clocks back so that the sun will set at about 3pm, making cocktail hour somewhere around 9am.  Remember to turn those clocks back and please, PLEASE vote, if you haven’t already.  Because it’ll be super dark after we set the clocks back, but after Tuesday, it could be way darker.