October…when the weather turns cooler (except for the half of the month where it’s warm and everyone says, “Wow, it’s unusually warm this month!” and I feel like saying, “Yeah, umm…this is like the seventh year in a row you’ve mentioned this.”). Anyway, there’s a lot of stuff that’s specific to October. Much of it is festive. I don’t buy everything the tenth month is selling. To wit:

Making a trip to the pumpkin patch is the most fun you can have without actually having any fun.

Ditto leaf peeping…but thankfully, it can be done from a car.

All pumpkin-flavored beer tastes like the contents of a wrung-out bar rag. And I’m talking about a bar rag from a Texas Roadhouse, not a classy joint like TGI Friday’s.

To say that I’m not good at carving a pumpkin is a lot like saying Paris Hilton’s vocals on her latest album are a bit lacking. The aftermath of my pumpkin carving is akin to a murder scene: you’ll find me bloody, ashamed and with innards strewn about.

Attention radio stations: you do realize that the term “Rocktober” stopped being clever 20 years ago, right?

Halloween pranksters: your particular brand of merriment has never really endeared itself to the general public. And, if you hadn’t already noticed, America lost its collective sense of humor after 9/11. Save it, jerkises (I had to unretire my favorite insult from the ’80s).

I normally like to think that I’m a fairly creative person. Halloween is like a massive intervention where everyone gathers in better costumes than mine to remind me that no, I’m not actually creative in the least.