Whether it's 80 degrees outside or a chilly 50, Starbucks will decide when autumn arrives. This year, they started autumn early by releasing their pumpkin-spice flavored drinks already. Apparently, fall has arrived. Could this be due to global warming?
Starbucks is a bit over eager this year. It's barely September and the pumpkin-spice lattes, frappucinos, and everything that can be made with coffee are back. These drinks signal autumn, but I'm not one to accept this season change quite yet.
I refuse to accept that summer is over - here in our lovely home of Ann Arbor we are still experiencing highs of 80s so is it really already autumn?
In my opinion, no. The sun still comes up every morning and flip-flops are still acceptable. The scattered and random storms might suggest that our weather patterns are messed up and maybe global warming really is a thing, but fall is not yet something that I must accept.
Sure, Apple released their newest products meaning that it's the beginning of the school year (or September), but that doesn't mean it's the beginning of anything else. Summer continues to grace Michigan and we must make the most of our time without snow, polar vortexes, and the Markley wind tunnel phenomenon.
Fall means that we must wear more clothing, scroll through seasonal Instagram and Facebook posts, stay indoors to avoid the falling pollen, pull out umbrellas from inside of our closets, and start shuffling to class with our heads down and ear buds in.
If autumn is really here, the worst season is yet to come. The optimists may say that autumn means pumpkin carvings, apple cider mill outings, cozy nights in, frolicking in leaves and Halloweek planning. While some of this sounds wonderful, it also means the end of darty season. It signals the end of warm football Saturday tailgates and the beginning of sweatshirt weather.
In all honesty I’m just not ready for it. Autumn means the end of iced coffee (unless you’re one of those people who still drinks it in February, you do you), it means that midterms will soon become a thing and most importantly it means that welcome week is very, very over.
Perhaps you can’t wait to pull out your snow boots and wear them around campus while avoiding the black ice on the sides of the roads. You could even be looking forward to frozen hair, forever-chapped lips, hypothermic temperatures, and peppermint-flavored anything from Starbucks. To you I say please stop wishing for colder temperatures so that the poor out-of-staters (myself included) can enjoy the last few days of sunshine before the polar vortex returns.
