In my neck of the woods, this is what Autumn looks like.

Yesterday was the first cool-ish day we’ve had since May.   While the lower temperature felt nice, I also noticed for the first time that some of the trees are beginning to change colors.  It was also overcast and gloomy, and I realized that my SAD symptoms have kicked in full bore.   I just felt like crawling into bed to escape from the sadness I felt.   After winter, fall is my least favorite season.   Here are 12 reasons why I hate it.

1.  Around here, the “changing colors” just means the trees change from green to brown to bare.  A few turn this unattractive shade of deep maroon or this dirty looking yellow, but unless you go up to the Parkway, we really don’t get the brilliant fall colors you see in places further north, like Vermont.   To me, fall is not only not pretty,  it’s actually sort of ugly.  The traditional “fall colors”–gold, brown, red and orange–look like ’70s colors to me–I much prefer the ’80s colors of spring.

2.  Everyone crowing about how great fall is.   Shut up.  Please.  Just shut up.

3.  I have to deal with the school traffic again every morning on my way to work.

4. “Pumpkin spice” everything.  Makes me want to puke in my mouth.   Take your damn pumpkin scents and flavors (newsflash–pumpkin tastes like nothing) and GTFO.

5.  It gets dark early and it’s dark when you get up for work, and every day is darker and shorter than the last.

6.  The gloom.  November and December are the worst, but October is guilty too.  Gray, overcast, dark, rainy, and depressing doesn’t bode well for my SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). And in late fall, around here it rains.   And rains. And rains.  And it’s not the life-giving, energizing sudden showers of spring, it’s all-day-and-all-night-long, cold, dismal, continuous drizzle that sometimes turns icy and makes you want to go hibernate until spring.

7.  All the “fall-foliage” seeking idiots who clog the roads on their way to the Parkway. Go to Vermont instead. The colors there are much nicer.

8.  Fake, over-commercialized holidays — in particular the extended Christmas season which seems to start earlier every year–which seem intended to bring some “cheer” to the gloomy last half of fall, but really just makes everyone a nervous wreck instead because of its unrealistic expectations of “family togetherness,” over the top commercialization, and extravagant gift-giving that no one can really afford.  Oh, and let’s not forget Thanksgiving, with its heavy, fatty, depressing food and its gross PUMPKIN pie.  And these days, Thanksgiving is eclipsed by Black Friday anyway, which now starts on Thanksgiving, so all the turkey stuffed lemmings go rushing out to stand on line all night in the rainy cold for a new flat screen TV.  Halloween is okay, but is overrated as f.

9. I could give a rat’s arse about football, and that’s all anyone talks about besides their holiday plans.

10.  Fall means winter is coming and winter is torture to me on every level.

11. Let’s stop denying it.  In the fall, everything’s dying.  Those “brilliant colors” you see for about two weeks?  It’s just the leaves  attempting to get your attention one last time before they drop dead and turn into worm-food, that’s all.

12.  Once you get into the months ending in -ber, you know one more year is in its death throes and for some reason that’s really depressing.

A sad little twig with its wilting, dying leaves just makes me want to cry.

*****

Further reading:

https://luckyottershaven.com/2015/09/27/my-seasonal-affective-disorder-makes-me-want-to-hibernate-until-spring/