The season of pumpkin spice, cozy sweaters, and—if you live anywhere near a scenic highway—a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam of Subarus doing 12 miles an hour while somebody's grandma leans out the window to photograph a maple tree.
Somewhere around mid-October, America collectively loses its mind.
We drive four hours to look at trees that are literally dying, pay $9 for a small cup of flavored hot milk, and Instagram the whole ordeal like we've summited Everest.
Meanwhile, the actual locals who live in these picturesque towns are trapped in their driveways, hostage to a parade of tourists who can't parallel park.
Let's talk about the pumpkin patch industrial complex.
You used to grab a gourd from a cardboard box outside a church.
Now it's a $45 "experience" with hayrides, corn mazes, and a petting zoo where the goat has clearly seen things.
You're paying admission to walk through dirt.
And don't get me started on the "cozy" marketing scam.
Every brand on earth suddenly discovers plaid and rustic typography.
Your coffee order gets renamed something like "Sweater Weather Bliss" and costs two dollars more.
It just has cinnamon on top now, and you're emotionally invested.
Your neighbor, Gary, has three hundred pumpkins on his porch.
Not carved—just sitting there, slowly rotting into a biohazard you'll be scraping off the concrete in December.
Somebody on your street already put up a twelve-foot inflatable ghost, and it's October 3rd.
Climate change has basically turned the season into a speedrun.
One week it's 85 degrees, the next you're scraping frost off your windshield wondering where the "crisp air" went.
Blink and you've missed the whole thing, straight from tank tops to parkas.
But here's the thing—we do it to ourselves.
We romanticize the one season that's actively falling apart.
The leaves don't even change on schedule anymore.
And yet we line up for the hayride anyway, credit card in hand, because tradition is a hell of a drug.
Fall is the last gasp before the darkness.
We're all just coping with the impending doom of winter by pretending a gourd can save us.
If you can't beat seasonal depression, you might as well monetize it.
So go ahead, buy the overpriced candle that smells like "Autumn Harvest." Take the family photo in matching sweaters that you'll cringe at in six months.
Sit in that traffic jam and inhale the exhaust while you admire the foliage.
It's your God-given right as an American to endure mild inconvenience in the name of a good Instagram post.
Just do us all a favor and pull over before you stop to take the picture.
Final Thoughts
The rest of us are trying to get home before the sun sets at 4:45 p.m.