Gag Me! It’s Fall, the Worst Season of the Entire Year
No season causes me to have as much confusion and nausea as fall. After a suffocatingly hot summer, it seems only natural that I would cheer when the air stops burning my lungs. But with the cool air comes other things, things that sicken me and cause me to want to put a clothespin on my nose and walk around with a blindfold. Join me, fellow autumn haters, in rehearsing why fall is the worst.
The Assault of Color
Before the shedding trees have lost all of their leaves, our world becomes blanketed with orange and yellow and brown leaves that curl up and die. I don’t mind raking leaves. That’s not the problem. It’s that the leaves have inspired an autumnal trend in which orange is the new green. My former favorite holiday was Thanksgiving, but somewhere along the way, the color schemes killed it for me. People even go so far as to string fall-colored lights, these days. So not only do we have door decorations to avert our eyes from, they are often punctuated with orange lighting--this, in addition to the traditional rotting candle-lit pumpkins. The soft glow at night is impossible to erase from peripheral vision, making me want to wear blinders and run like a frickin’ racing horse.
The Assault of Smell
I can say one thing I love about fall is the memes that demonstrate a shared hatred for the smells of autumn. Pumpkin spice, pumpkin chai, pumpkin peppercorn, cinnamon pumpkin, pumpkin buttercream, and pumpkin pecan waffles are the kinds of candle fragrances that fill homes and businesses. Don’t forget crackling ginger pumpkin, pumpkin souffle, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cinnamon bun, and the dreaded apple pumpkin. It’s the absolute worst seasonal smell. Foods that have these smells are even more disgusting.
The Assault of the Hungry Ghost Festival
Okay, so Hungry Ghost Festival is an Asian version of Halloween, and it takes place on August 15 every year. Not a lot of people are with me on this hatred of Halloween. I for one don’t think a celebration of horror is all that great. A certain precious 5-year-old girl in my family encountered an automated horror-themed decoration and was so scared, she jumped into a nearby shrub. Insensitive adults thought it was hilarious, but I think she was really scarred. Not just scared but scarred. For years, she couldn’t bear going down the Halloween costume aisles in stores. It’s just too much horror to go along with the pleasant task of collecting candy from neighbors. It’s as out of hand as the color orange in fall.
The Assault of Autumn Pain and Disease
All of the most common illnesses and pains in fall do a number on me every autumn. This includes bouts of flu, seasonal allergies, arthritis pain, and seasonal affective disorder. As a child, I suffered from asthma, and fall was the worst season of them all, when I fought for the very breath of life. Even my mean brother pitied me.
Sure, if you like fall, dress your children for Halloween and get a clever Halloween t-shirt for yourself. Just don’t expect me to participate in all of these orange-colored assaults on the senses. I’m not doin’ it.
