Walking out of my apartment, I'm instantly hit with whirls of leaves, the crisp scent of the air and a cool breeze teeming with flu particles: yep, it's Fall.
The new season, with its orange, red and brown hues, signals a number of changes:
-The Fall of leaves from the trees
-Falling on your butt as you trudge
through the rain to class
-Falling in love with apple-picking, the color orange and the cute person you've been sitting next to for a month in lecture
Oh, what joy this season brings.
But as we move from October to December and the leaves change, so do we. Fall brings about changes in ourselves that are even greater than the ones we faced in our puberty days—just when you thought it wasn't possible.
Here are the three symptoms of Fall:
Change #1: We want the crap scared out of us
Once that first leaf falls, we morph into thrill-seeking zombies. The occasional scare induced by a pop quiz or the realization you've had four drinks too many is no longer enough. Now, we seek greater thrills in the form of movies and television.
A trip to the video store becomes a full-on manhunt for the goriest, can't-catch-my-breath, supernatural thriller in the store; so gory that it's practically dripping with blood as you take it off the shelf.
A movie with a title such as, ""Chopped Up and Delicious,"" ""I Want to Saw Off Your Neck and Cook-It-For-Dinner"" or ""Everyone Dies Very Slowly and Morbidly"" suddenly sounds like the perfect accompaniment to an evening at home during Fall.
Holding the TV remote, we surf for even greater scares. News watching takes a backseat as we consume some of the eeriest (and frighteningly awful) horror films of the century on cable television. Suddenly, ""Gingerdead Man,"" ""A Night to Dismember"" and ""Final Destination 3"" are devoured faster than a bowl of Reese's and Snickers.
But our appetite for fear doesn't just start and end at our TV. We even take this perverse desire to the streets; knocking on doorbells, we show up at the front door of strangers' homes, in clothing that resembles monsters, aliens and Paris Hilton and actually ask for candy. No—we don't just ask for it; we expect it! And guess what? These strangers hand the saccharine, chewy, addictive goodness right over to us. Oh, what a beautiful world.
Change #2: We want to hurl ourselves out the window
As the leaves fall and the temperature drops, so may our grades. Midterm exams appear and multiply with the coming weeks, like little colonies of bacteria. They attack our social lives, deplete our general level of happiness and leave us feeling like death. Even sleep is not a possible antidote.
Papers are slammed on us right before Halloween weekend and Thanksgiving break because, well, we just can't get to the finish line without huffing, puffing and nearly passing out. You've got to earn your turkey, baby!
Then, on top of it all, there's the rain—drenching, chills-you-to-the-bone rain that starts right when you wake up for class and ends right when you get home, appropriately. All you want to do is curl up on your couch and watch ""Hocus Pocus"" with one hand in the candy bowl. But no—college calls and just keeps on hollering.
Change #3: We become five-year-olds again
Give us a pile of leaves, and we will jump, swim and play in them. Heck, we'll even sleep in them! With the arrival of Fall, our attention turns to nature and the simpler things in life, things we lose touch with amid the flurry of exams and papers. Nostalgia surges through us as we remember the homemade pies baked around Thanksgiving, the trips to the apple orchards we went to as kids and the carving of pumpkins into spooky designs.
Now in college, we recreate these moments; gathering our friends, we pick five times as many apples as we did at five years old and bake pies in our cramped dorm kitchens and apartments. We even buy tiny pumpkins and do our best to carve them without our parents help.
We make time to watch ""Halloweentown"" on the Disney channel at six o'clock and ransack the aisles of Walgreens for copious amounts of orange and green wrapped candy. A hot beverage and some candy corn are as essential as a pencil during our nights in the library—and they've never been sweeter.
Want to watch a scary movie and eat endless amounts of pie and candy? Yes? I'm so there! E-mail me at gleicher@wisc.edu.
