Fall? My least favorite season and it’s not even close.

Reluctantly trading in my Lululemon shorts for leggings and my pool towel for a wind-breaker, I’m forced to realize my afternoons without homework or responsibilities are over — it’s fall.

It’s around the first week of October when the texts in all-girl group chats start rolling in. Before I can even groan, there’s ten different Halloween costume ideas to comment on and a month full of haunted house dates and pumpkin patch outings to mark on my calendar.

Halloween, fall, October, spooky season — whatever you want to call it — is my least favorite time of the year. 

Don’t get me wrong, I live for the color-changing trees and the crisp 60 degree days that October brings — not to mention sweatshirts as my everyday look? I can’t get enough of the coziness. 

But between my fifteen community service hours for NHS, Harbinger deadlines, marching festivals, SAT tutoring, 15 hours a week of dance and no fall break, I’m seriously expected to make time for the Louisburg Cider Mill and trips to The Beast? 

My life already feels like a never-ending corn maze. Halloween and its fall “baggage” is the last thing I need.

Hauling myself out to Westport to stand in freezing temperatures for an hour and then dropping 35 dollars on a mediocre haunted house is not the ideal way to spend the occasional free night. After four years of the same werewolves and zombies, I’m not even phased by the jump scares anymore. 

And I surely don’t need to be spending hours living on Amazon trying to find a cheap last-minute Halloween costume. Not to mention the inevitable $15 shipping fee I’ll be paying to get it here on time because my friend group is always last minute. No thanks.

Don’t even get me started on pumpkin patches. Once a fun annual activity with my family, I can only see it now for its overpriced food and apple cider, terrible weather and squashed pumpkins.

Don’t get me wrong, fall has some redeeming qualities. Yes, I love crunching my feet on the crisp color-changing leaves. Yes, I am guilty of shopping for trendy fall clothes online and craving fall foods like chili and pumpkin bread. But the fall time sends me into stress mode — and I’m not here for it.