Autumn is for spoiled rich kids and poets- fall is what the rest of us have to deal with. Autumn is the crisp walk through the meadows with a box of Crayola crayons worth of colors to enjoy and soak in for hours on end. Along with the changing colors of everything around you the inspirational migrations of animals brings you to a deep insight of how the circle of life is constantly moving, elaving you dreamin of the oncoming spring. Autumn is the time of celebration to mark another successful harvest of our labor filled summer that can be spent together with a loving family over a steaming plate of delectable finely made food.
Fall fails.
Fall, for the rest of us, is cold, grey and dead.
My color palate for fall is primary; yellow. The trees are yellow, teh bushes are yellow, and the grass is yellow. the only thing orange anywhere near my house is the slide in teh local park down my street that is covered in tags from the most recent middle school kids that thought they were in a gang. even then teh orange of the slide isn't really an ornage but more of a tiger print when you squint your eyes with all of the black lines running across it.
Fall's migration of animals is basic too; the good stuff leaves, the bad things only get closer. even the autumn people know that the cool thigns leave. Bears go and hibernate, deer get shot, bald eagles take a vacation from the nation that made them famous, turkeys show up on your plate, and even whales get out while they can. These spokes-animals for autumn know when things are going down hill fast; and they get out. they take their song singing, camper mauling, fether flapping, blow hole blowing, butts out of fall as soon as is it gets close. Us fall people get stuck with the things that are either too dumb or too lazy to get out.
We get cockroaches.
During spring and summer it's not too bad, they stay on their sdie of the walls, and you ocasionally get a visitor here and there to freak out your sisters with. during fall the entire cockroach community int he square mile aroudn your house deicde to take residence in your room because it's the only place warm enough for them to live.
Long walks through meadows? only for those autumn folks, us fall people have to deal with school. When school starts your first reaction is- hey this isn't too bad, it's sunny, I can still be happy, I'll do all of my homework and turn it in on time. Then fall comes around. things turn yellow, the cockroaches stake their claim and start to colonize your closet in the name of her royal highness, and we're stuck with homework.
I don't know what school the autumn people are going to, or who they're getting to do their homeowrk for them, but even in kindergarten I was too busy with school to find a decent time to take a walk around the block to take a slide down the tiger slide, let alone a pastoral stroll through groves of trees. I was busy. I had to write the alphabet five times before the next day, and that's hard to do when you can't remember if LMNOP is two letters or three. Now days, my long walks browsing the colors of the seasons are limited to long walks around the shelves of the library enjoying the dull autumn yellows of the older books while I try to stretch my legs before I have to write the alphabet five times in Swedish.
Celebrating our harvest and hard work through thanksgiving with friends- it sounds great when those autmn people talk about it; but then the fall folk dive into the fun. Thansgiving is a lie. Autumners want you to believe that Thanksgiving is a celebration of a job well done over the summer. Who has ever done any job well during the summer? The annoying work that you have to put up with is just starting when you're celebrating not having to work any more. Thanksgiving to the fall folk is throwing a party to celebrate a lie. you're not done with work, it's just starting.
Friends, family, and food; the divine trinity of autumn festiviites- the axis of evil of all fall feuds. Nothing says famillies are forever like locking up poeple that haven't been with each other for a week in the same house. autumn people play football and come closer together as they bond as a family; fall folk remember that Uncle Rowland is creepy even when you're an adult and he says that he wants to play touch football with you. Autumn people go to grandma's for a feast, fall folk have had at least one Thanksgiving at Denny's after the turkey was still froen at eight in the evening.
Even if fall is dark, yellow, cockroach infested, with homework due, and the constant threat of Thanksgiving happening, there is one thing that the autumn people are missing. Fall folk enjoy everything. We don't care about the tiger slide, we love it. The cockraoches become a weird sort of frienemy that we have turf wars with when we have nothing else better to do. Thanksgiving we look forward to just to watch how much it won't be like yours. We learn the waiters name at Denny's and invite Robert to eat with us the next year. We do our homework and pass the class while you're failing it from your walks our in nature. Your trees take hours to color, while our world only takes one crayon and then we can get on with more important things. You can have your autumn, we'll stick to our fall.
Oh, and by the way. . .
