What's the Deal with Fall

*YAWN* 

*STRETCH*

Back from hibernation. Good thing I ate all that bark and berries. Bears have got the idea, don't they? Sleep through the cold. Avoid the snow. Smart. You know what else is smart? I just thought of a new book title.

BACK FROM HIBER-NATION! 

Oh that's rich and delicious. 

Seriously though. Fall is officially here and I must say it may very well be my least favorite season. I don't want to sound negative and yes the color-changing leaves are cool, but when I think about Fall, I immediately remember the anxiety of going back to school. A new year of new subjects and school books and homework. Riding the bus. Never knowing where to sit. Home room. Seeing how all the pretty girls have gotten prettier over the summer while the popular guys became more popular. Realizing I'm still carrying my lunch to school in a plastic He-man lunchbox and I'm supposed to be a sophomore in high school. Yuck! I don't know how you kids do it. There's a level of stress that immediately kicks in whenever I feel the first frosty morning. 

Of course there will be sports. Football. Love it! Up until I pick a team in the family competition and I watch that team's quarterback get injured in the first game. Then I watch everyone else's teams make comeback after miraculous comeback to win every one of their stupid games while my wife and her mother shout things like "Double play!" and "He's traveling! He can't do that!" every time their teams take to the field. It's embarrassing. I do all the research, make spreadsheets, watch Sportscenter until numbers swirl before my eyes as I meticulously select my pick, while they make decisions based on how shiny their helmets are. All right, I'll probably get in big trouble for this paragraph because its not entirely true, but I guess I am just bitter. 

But the Fall television premieres, Frank! What about those? 

Yeah, I've never been much of television fan. Oh, I watch sports and movies and the Food Network, but I don't know what programs are befitting my evening hours. I can't handle drama. People dying on hospital beds, crime scene investigators, or weirdos lost on make believe islands. Week after week of more guessing and more watching and more "find out next week" and 24 episodes, etc., etc. I guess that's why I like movies so much. They end in between my bathroom breaks. Perfection. I sat down with my kids the other day and watched an episode of one of their shows and I about barfed in my hands. I don't remember what the show was called, but I didn't like it and from what I could see, neither did my kids. They just stared at the screen dull-faced, barely blinking, never laughing or cracking a smile, never repeating any of the catchy quips supposedly being said by the mini-Britney Spears wannabes dancing across the television. Don't they realize this stuff is junk?

The single saving event for the Fall is Halloween. Now that is almost worth the 3 months endurance test. I really wish grown-ups could go trick-or-treating. I want to dress up like a large slug and slime people. I want to go door to door for grown up treats. You know, stuff like: extra value meals, cans of soda, lottery tickets, paychecks, hammers, IPhone 5's, tubes of sensitive tooth paste, things of that nature. Wouldn't that be awesome? We could take our kids along with us, but they would stand on the curb with the strollers coaxing us to walk up to the houses by ourselves and reminding us to say our little chants. Then I would slime them. All of them! And shout, "Michael Vick! Why can't you win a football game!!! The 49ers man! Are you kidding me???"

I'm supposed to like the Fall. It's the end of sweltering heat. But everything is getting colder. Shaving my face hurts. Wearing hair gel becomes a nuisance because it freezes my hair. Hand shakes and high fives start to hurt because of the cold. Scraping car windows. Might as well schedule a dental exam and shoot a reindeer. And lets not forget Thanksgiving. Don't even get me started on that awful, useless... holy curdled cream Batman! Did I almost knock Thanksgiving? Turkey... Stuffing.... Food Coma.... Hiber-nation? I forgot Thanksgiving fell in the fall. 

Fell in the fall. Say that five times real fast. And what about haunted houses and corn mazes and horror movies and sweater vests? And miniature candy bars and pumpkin pie and hayrides and knit caps. And woolly socks and bubble baths and aroma therapy candles? Oh wait. Those three things are fit for any season. 

ARGH! GRUNT! GROWL! *Sigh* It's not so bad. It's all right. Therefore, in order to keep the Fall season in a positive light, I vote we forfeit the whole NFL! And school and cold and television shows and the Eagles and the Philadelphians (not the people of that great state just the football team who ruined my chances of winning the Golden Football.)

The End.