It's Unfortunately November Now

Hey, it's November. That sucks, though. Because November is the worst month of the year.

There are other crappy months, to be sure. In fact, these last couple years, they all seem pretty crappy, don't they? August is miserably hot. And February is freezing. But August is still summer, and some people get to go on vacation. And February, while also being cursed by stupid spelling (shouldn't we just drop the silent "r" at this point?) and the horribleness of Valentine's Day, is blessedly short. November we get a full thirty increasingly dark days, each bursting with things to complain about.

First of all, the weather. The pleasant briskness in the air will soon turn malevolent. Biting wind will blow all the leaves that have been such pretty colors lately off the trees because they're dead. That sweater that was fun to take out and wear a couple weeks ago won't feel so great bundled under the big puffy coat that there's never enough room for in any restaurant or bar or closet in the city, and you will lose two hats, two scarves and one glove of three different pairs of gloves before winter even officially begins. The rain will be cold.

There's Halloween candy everywhere. This particularly sucks if you're a parent of a five year-old for whom sugar has an effect not unlike that of Four Loko. (At night, after he's asleep, you will eat most, if not all, of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in the bowl. For his sake. You don't want him to get cavities. You know it will make you fatter, and your tri-gliceride cholesterol level is already problematically high, but you will sacrifice your own health for his.) Plus the environmentally damaging, vitamin D-leeching, gloom-inducing end of Daylight Savings Time. And of the baseball season. And election day happens—this year seemingly bound to yield the most depressing results since six years ago, when we showed the rest of the world how happy we were with our then-current administration.

The whole major bummer of a month is of course heading to Thanksgiving, when we will endure the mind-blowing frustration of the worst travel day of the year (how is Due Date different from Planes, Trains & Automobiles, by the way? It's not different, right?) so that we can gather with our families for a meal and fighting that leads to tears.

Oh, and Wyclef comes back.