Smash’s Fall Favourites

The air is crisp and cool in the morning, livening up throughout the day, bringing mild and refreshing afternoons. Should you wear a big fluffy sweater or a lighter shirt/jacket combo? Heavy duty boots or happy-go-lucky sneakers? What about sunglasses? You’ll probably need them for that precious two-minute window between the sun waking up and the final steps taken towards your office building where you’ll spend the next 8 hours languishing under the ghastly fluorescent lighting. But then those shades will be irrelevant by quitting time when you slink home in the dark like some kind of mole-person.

Sometimes you’ll dress too heavily and wind up sweating like a goddamned animal in the afternoon as you trudge home. Sometimes you won’t dress heavily enough and will catch yourself a nice bout of walking pneumonia because you didn’t fully dry your hair before rushing out of the house in the morning. Sometimes it’s perfectly sunny and charming. Others, it pours cold bullshit like a motherfucker. You never know what kind of weather you’re going to get from the God of Fall, but you roll with it like a champ. It’s oddly invigorating, and you like being kept on your toes.

Oh, Fall, you adorable little trickster, you! I may not be able to count on you for the most reliable weather, but I can still count on you for a bunch of awesome shit every year nonetheless. Stuff so awesome that it makes handling your bi-polarishly insane weather ups and downs well worth it. For instance…

1) Delicious Holiday Foods

Fall signals to us the readiness of apple orchards, pumpkin patches, and major corporations to churn out fucking delicious seasonal foods. Hearty pies, spiced up lattes, caramel drizzled confections, fun-sized chocolatey treats, and turkeys big enough for a ride in the car sans booster seat. Fall gives us bounty. Delicious, plentiful, bounties of food. And because Fall is as generous as it’s weather is fickle, it also gives us holidays that don’t shame us for indulging our most gluttonous and depraved food desires. You’re supposed to get drunk on Ma’s special Thanksgiving punch and make a messy emotional scene. Hell, it’d be impolite not to.

I bought this apple pie at the grocery store for $2.99! What a scrumptious steal. And it’s going fast by the look of it…

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be gorging myself stupid on a big juicy bird just like the one we had last year.

I’ll probably also eat a shit-ton of fun-sized Halloween candies. Way more than a person with actual dignity would ever feel comfortable admitting. Ones that I bought for myself at the store because that’s how I roll now. I’m an adult, and I don’t walk around the neighbourhood, undercover of the night, begging for candy anymore. I just go out and buy it like the lazy couch-grazing asshole that I am because legging it for candy is for the kiddies.

2) Doing Weird Decorative Things To Pumpkins

I don’t know how this tradition came to be, and I don’t really care. Pumpkin carving and/or decorating is an essential part of Fall. If you don’t roll up your sleeves and plunge your bare hands deep into some slick and slimy pumpkin guts at some point throughout the Fall, then you’re not doing Fall right. Pumpkins want to be carved, or mutilated, depending on how handy you actually are with a knife.

Last year, I offered up my humble Batman carving to the God of Fall. He wasn’t impressed, but he accepted it. Joss is the one who actually pleased the God of Fall with her delightful feline rendering.

And don’t forget, even the tiny pumpkins want to be included. My little sister Jess gave this tiny pumpkin a handsome Dracula face to wear for the holidays last year. He wasn’t left out, and we all felt the better for it. Warms the cockles of your heart that does.

And if you really can’t stomach the pumpkins, at least get some gourds for chrissakes! Pumpkin’s little ugly cousin Gourd might be more your speed.

3) Awesome Blogging Festivities

There’s a lot of fun to be had during Fall in the blogging community. And you don’t have to be a blogger to enjoy it, either. Just grab a comp and bookmark your favourites. People do fun weird things in this world of ours, and all of that spectacle is within your reach. One blogger chum of mine over at The IPC just wrapped up a great little contest known as Shitfest Fall: 2013. You may or may not have enjoyed my distasteful entry back in September. And just today the hilarious dudes over at Hard Ticket To Home Video launched the first entry of their Third Annual Schlocktoberfest. It’s going to be an absolute mecca for cheesy horror movie lovers out there, and you won’t want to miss it. One of the best surprises for me this fall was when The Surfing Pizza started his annual Halloween Countdown early. I read his posts with religious devotion throughout the entire month of October. Often at my desk during lunch. I’m that person, laughing like a lunatic at my monitor for no apparent reason. Like we’re having the funniest conversation ever, in total silence. I’m starting to get a reputation, and not the good kind.

A few clickety clacks on the keyboard and you’re having the time of your life. It’s way more fun than reading the shitty old news or poorly edited Yahoo articles.

4) Costume Parties

I’m a creative little weirdo and I love to get hammered, you guys know that. Halloween fucking rules because it’s the perfect outlet for all of my binge drinking and strangeness. And this year is no exception. We’re going to party, and we’re going to have hilarious Halloween costumes that we crafted ourselves. I personally prefer funny costumes to skanky, and the drunks at the bars eat that shit up! The pilgrimage to Value Village to rummage up secondhand clothing suitable for costume crafting is something I look forward to every year.

We’re going to put our heads together to come up with something even better than last year’s colourful iteration of Archie and Jughead.

It’s okay to admit that you find Archie remarkably sexy. I got that a lot last year. Archie loves the ladies and the ladies love Archie right back. Even if it is only a Tootsie Roll in my pocket.

5) Fall Back

When you drink and party as much as I do during the fall holidays, that extra hour we’re given because of Daylight Savings Time is nothing short of miraculous. If I’m gonna keep carrying on this way, then I’m gonna need my goddamned beauty sleep. Two years ago, I had to go to Abu Dhabi for work in November. It was a life changing experience, I’m glad it happened, and blah blah blah all that wonderful positive shit. But I missed out on Daylight Savings Time. I didn’t get to Fall Back like I always do at that time of year, and my heart ached for it. Instead, I was all imbalanced from Springing Ahead without the corrective Fall Back to even me out. It makes a difference. I was one mean motherfucker when I got back from the Middle East and I don’t blame that on jet lag. I worship Fall Back and can’t wait to get up at 2:00am on Sunday November 3rd for the divine pleasure of turning the clocks back. And once that deed is done, I’ll be going back to bed for more quality shuteye.

We’ve only just begun, but I’m already feeling this season. To the God of Fall: you rock, bro.