Fall

I’m very tempted to open this column by telling you that Mother Nature and I have a love-hate relationship, but that would just be false. The truth is there’s no “love” in our relationship at all; I just really dislike nature.

Side note: was that really so hard? No, no it wasn’t. For some reason people feel the need to defend or mitigate their dislike of certain widely beloved things. They’ll say, “I’m not much of a pumpkin spice person,” instead of “I absolutely despise the sugary taste of artificial pumpkin,” as if they expect all of their companions to jump back, wide-eyed, and shout “Surely not!” when really, no one gives a crap. It does not affect me in any way if you don’t enjoy apple cider, don’t think "How I Met Your Mother" (2005-2014) is quality TV or prefer Ginn to Tisch. That being said, if you don’t enjoy coffee, don’t think "Breaking Bad" (2008-2013) is quality TV or prefer Carm to Dewick, I will insist on taking you to Health Services because you are clearly deluded and cannot be walking around unsupervised because you are a terrible menace to yourself.

But I digress. If you know me personally you may be a bit surprised at the tone of this column (but then you clearly haven’t read S&S before, and so are we even friends?), as it’s around this time of the year that you are likely to find me prancing around campus soaking in (read: Instagramming) the beautiful colors of autumn, showcasing my expertly layered fall outfits and announcing to uninterested bystanders how delighted I am that it’s finally fall. Well, readers, that just goes to show that everything is relative. It’s not really that I love fall; it’s that, of the four seasons, I hate fall the least. If I had my way we would live in a temperature-controlled environment where it was 60 degrees year-round and the weather was conveniently scheduled weeks in advance (as if you needed any more incentive to vote Lex for world dictator). But this is sadly not the case, and we are stuck with fall, winter, spring and summer.

Winter, as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, is miserable. You can’t walk from Dewick to the campus center without half your face freezing off, and you’ll have icicles growing out of your head in nanoseconds should you dare to step outside with even a drop of moisture in your hair. Spring is really just monsoon season -- you’re a fool to think you can leave your umbrella at home for even a few hours because Mother Nature is evil and will ensure a vicious downpour before you can say “April showers.” And then there’s summer. You can wax on all you want about lazy beach days, barefoot summer nights and sun-kissed skin, but I have a one-word rebuttal that destroys your entire argument: humidity.

Anyway, my current beef with nature is this Indian summer ridiculousness that was going on last week. You might think I’m just looking for something to complain about (and usually you’d be spot-on), but 70 degrees in October is all well and good until you talk to your cool (aka Game of Thrones-watching) friends and realize that winter is coming. This awkward, unseasonably warm weather is not pushing back winter’s arrival at all, and so is only stealing precious weeks of fall away from us. And that, Jumbos, is certainly something to be upset about.

So no matter the weather, this week you’ll find me stubbornly nursing my seasonal coffee and wearing an impressive number of very thin earth-toned layers. Chins up, everyone -- they might be able to steal some autumn weather away from us, but there’s always Thanksgiving.