October 12, 2026
It’s finally October! Oh happy day! Since I was in my late teens October has been my favorite month. I know most kids love December because that’s the month of Christmas! However, December just reminds me that the end of the year is coming up, and I haven’t done squat during the last twelve months! When I was a little kid, my favorite months were March and May. March is my birthday month and May always meant the end of the school year. Once I hit the age of twenty-one though, I had no desire to get any older. To be truthful, I had no issues with becoming a real-life Peter Pan, and as far as I was concerned, March just became a reminder that I was one year closer to death. As I got older, that added year just meant that flirting with girls in their twenties would just be more of a challenge. As for May, once I was in college the spring month merely meant finals and the grueling notion that I had to find a summer job to pay for college. With those two awful thoughts in mind, May lost its appeal as well. Actually, during my college years August became a favorite. This was the month when I got to ditch the gosh awful, outdoor, dirty, laborious summer job and escape to the airconditioned and female laden classrooms of my university.
For the last few decades though, I haven’t had any final tests, backbreaking summer jobs, and unfortunately, no classrooms full of hot, young college coeds to drool over. With all of this taken into consideration, October has become my favorite month. One of the biggest reasons concerning my love of the month is of course the weather! Although the season of fall officially begins in September, the temperature here in North Texas was still soaring into the high nineties for the majority of September this year. Even though we’re into the second week of October, the temperature is still in the mid-eighties and far too hot for me, but at least I can walk outside without feeling the need to bathe in sunscreen. People talk about the leaves on the trees beginning to turn, but that doesn’t happen here until around Thanksgiving. One might say that the season of fall doesn’t exactly fall in Texas, but it bounces. It bounces for about five minutes. So we’d better enjoy it for the five minutes it’s here!
My love for the month of October really started in college. After walking around the Oklahoma State campus in the 100-degree days of late August and September, the introduction to the cooler fall weather was always a big deal for me! As classes started to take their toll of my subpar brain power I would get stressed out to the point that I was looking for any kind of motivation. For inspiration, I used to tack a sign to my dorm room wall stating, “October is coming!” Such tended to give me a ray of hope! At least it did until October finally did show up, and I quickly discovered that the cooler weather had little effect on my brain power. With that mind set, I usually replaced the “October is coming!” sign with my favorite catch phrase, “Life Sucks!” Booth signs tended to get weird looks from my roommate.
Of course the cooler weather, such as it is, does come with its disadvantages. Now all those outdoor projects I had put off all summer because of heat are all fair game now. I’ve been told that I have a pretty good imagination so I’m sure I can come up with some noble excuse to avoid all outdoor work, but I do plan to get some projects out of the way. I need to replace my soaker hoses around my house which means a lot of digging. I also need to replace my front door knob and lock which is a major pain if I recall the agonizing hell I went through the last time I did it. And since the guys who carried out the last gutter job around my house jacked up the woodwork around my roof, I need to repaint it as well. Oh great, now I’m starting to hate October and longing for the triple digit heat so I’ll have an excuse to stay inside and watch Netflix.
Of course football season is in full swing, so that’s a tantalizing goodie about October as well. In fact, October is the only month when not only football at all levels is being played, but major league baseball is in the heat of the playoffs. As an added bonus, the professional hockey season just kicked off, and the NBA will start shooting a few hoops in preseason play before the month ends. I think the WNBA might have finished up in October as well…maybe. And I’m sure soccer is being played somewhere. After all, it is the most popular sport in the world. So I’m guessing someone is kicking a ball somewhere. With that being said, October is kind the sports lover’s month! As for boxing? Well, you can beat up someone regardless of the month. Of course, there are other things going on in October. There’s Halloween! This means I have to think about finding a haunted house to wander through. The biggest challenge is finding someone to go with me. I’ve taken on such ventures by myself, but let’s face it, going through a haunted house alone at my age just looks kind of weird. In fact, it looks even creepier than the spooks in the haunted house. Oh well, I’ve still got twenty days to decide if I want to do anything for Halloween or just buy a bunch of candy and eat it myself. Come to think of it, all the outdoor projects I have lined out for myself seem far scary enough! I think I’ll just stay inside and hide.
Leave a Reply